Cramped conditions
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
30 Amona families still without permanent homes
A 100 days after the evacuation from the illegal outpost, some of the settlers are still living in a youth hostel in cramped conditions as the government tarries in building them a temporary site to live in until their permanent homes can be built.
A 100 days after they were evacuated from the illegal outpost Amona, 30 families are still without a permanent home.
The families, who willingly evacuated after securing a government promise to build a new settlement for them, have been living in a youth hostel in the nearby settlement of Ofra.
"We're living in really small rooms that have three bunk beds. We're sleeping with some of the children," said Tali Yahav, 42, a mother of seven.
Amona evacuees live at a youth hostel in Ofra (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
Tali has no kitchen and cannot cook. She has to contend with the only sink available—the one outside the bathroom.
"We put fridges in the rooms so we can have food at hand, but to open them you need to close another door because it's so crowded," she said. "I have a 19-year-old daughter who has no privacy. To talk on the phone, she needs to step outside. We have to turn off the lights at 8:30pm because I have an eight-year-old daughter. This is simply impossible."
In addition to the 30 families that still live in the hostel in Ofra, 12 other families have moved to different places in the settlement and in its surrounding area.
Amona evacuees live at a youth hostel in Ofra (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
"We feel like they're trying to get rid of us and avoid having to build the temporary site," Yahav said.
Amona evacuees live at a youth hostel in Ofra (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
Avichai Buaron, who leads the Amona residents' struggle, said that if left with no choice, the settlers will have to go to their new home themselves.
The prime minister, he said, "is the one who sent us to build Amona in 1996-1997, and then he's the one who evacuated Amona. So for him to break his explicit commitment and not immediately build the new settlement and allow us to live in a temporary site there—it's like stabbing us in the back, no less."
State officials said the delay in implementing the government's decision is the result of discussions held among the legal authorities in the Civil Administration and the IDF. An order from the GOC Central Command would allow to cut through some of the red tape and shorten the process, but the IDF's legal advisors oppose the move.
