On Tuesday night, the eve of 4 Elul, two right-wing activists, residents of the Ramat Migron outpost received administrative detention orders banning them from the area of Yehuda and Shomron, Honenu reports. They join two minors, aged 15 and 17, who received orders over the past two weeks. The orders are most probably part of police preparations clearing the area prior to the approaching planned forced removal of Migron residents.

The orders were signed by IDF Central District Commander Major-General Nitzan Alon, banning them from the area of Yehuda and Shomron. The orders are for the duration of six and nine months. According to the administrative detainees the security forces had more orders, apparently for additional residents of Ramat Migron.

One of the administrative detainees received the order while he was at his parents’ home in the community of Talmon. At 05:00 Yassam (Special Forces) police arrived at the home and banged on the door. When the father of the family opened the door he was asked to call his 18-year-old son. The policemen handed the son the order and left.

The other detainee, a 21-year-old newlywed received his order last night at his home in Ramat Migron. According to him the policemen who arrived looked for additional residents of the outpost in order to give them administration orders as well. A minor was detained and taken to the Shar Binyamin police station on a claim that he had violated his house arrest conditions. Honenu notes that the period of his house arrest ended approximately one month ago and that he was already erroneously detained last week and released shortly afterwards.

At this time four residents of Ramat Migron have recently received administrative orders banning them from Yehuda and Shomron, two last night, one earlier this week and one last week.

Among right-wing activists the appraisal of the situation is that in preparation of the forced removal of the residents of Migron scheduled to be carried out soon, the police are clearing the area of Ramat Migron residents out of concern that they will oppose and attempt to thwart the removal.

Ramat Migron was founded four and a half years ago on Israeli Independence Day in response to the plan being developed by the government to clear out the community of Migron and relocate the residents to the community of Adam. Despite the difficult living conditions due to the rough terrain, problems with the supply of water and electricity, repeated detentions of residents and destruction of property, the residents have steadfastly remained in Ramat Migron. Several months ago two residents of Ramat Migron married and started their home in the outpost. Last night the husband, as mentioned above, received an administrative order banning him from Yehuda and Shomron for nine months.

Recently due to court decisions granting the residents of Ramat Migron permanent residency status the police have been unable to detain residents of Ramat Migron due to violations of closed military zone orders as they had previously done. The ruling of the Jerusalem Magistrate Court stating that Jewish residents of an outpost are considered permanent residents and therefore exempt from closed military zone orders was upheld by the Jerusalem District Court and the Israeli Supreme Court.

Honenu objects to the policy of issuing administrative detention orders, “When the defense forces saw that they could no longer remove the residents of Ramat Migron by detaining them for violating closed military zone orders, they decided to change their tactic to issuing administrative detention orders. It is a shame that the security forces do not operate by basing accusations on legal evidence.”

Additionally Honenu is considering beginning legal proceedings against the decision of Major General Nitzan Alon which, in their opinion, bypasses the ruling of the Supreme Court of Israel.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)