At-Tuwani: Expansion of Havot Ma'on Illegal Outpost
17 August 2005

While world attention focused on the removal of Israeli settlers from the Israeli occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza, internationals from CPT and Operation Dove (an Italian peace group) living in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani in the West Bank have documented the expansion of an illegal Israeli outpost commonly called Havot Ma'on.

In February 2005 internationals and Palestinians observed that settlers were beginning to regularly occupy the caravan located on the eastern edge of the treed hilltop outpost, and had made improvements to the structure.

During the month of July 2005 settlers began constructing several more structures inside and on the eastern edge of the treed hilltop.  The expansion includes:
(1) a wooden and black tarp structure several hundred meters south down the hill from the caravan;
(2) a wooden structure close to the edge of the trees, between the caravan and the Ma'on chicken barns; and
(3) the frame of a wooden structure just inside the trees close to the road leading into the hilltop from the south side.

According to Peace Now's Settlement Watch group the treed hilltop outpost is called "Hill 833"; the current inhabitants of which used to live in the dismantled outpost called "Ma'on Farm".  Regardless
of the name of the currently inhabited outpost, construction on the existing outpost is continues.   

According to Israel's commitment to the RoadMap, all outposts established since March 2001 were to be evacuated and dismantled. Havot Ma'on is on the Israeli Ministry Defense's list of outposts established since that time, and Hill 833 is on Peace Now's list of outposts established since then.   

Talya Sason was commissioned by the Israeli Prime Minister to examine the phenomenon of outposts.  In February 2005, she released her report entitled `Summary of the Opinion Concerning Unauthorized Outposts.'  In the report, Sason concludes that civil and military authorities blatantly disregard the rule of law when it comes to outposts.  "The security concept, that wherever there is an Israeli person - IDF will be there to protect him, resulted in a very sad reality. Therefore, any settler who places his home wherever he chooses, even if unauthorized and against the law - gains the protection of the army. The outcome is that the settlers are the ones who set the army's deployment in the territories, not the army. The protection supplied by IDF to unauthorized outposts, its mere existence there, drags it unwillingly to give its "seal" to unauthorized outposts."

Joe "Yousef" Carr
Christian Peacemaker Teams - Palestine
972-54-426-1938
joecarr@riseup.net
www.lovinrevolution.org

Joe Carr, a young peace activist from Kansas City, signed up with a Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT). After lengthy training in non-violent conflict resolution Joe arrived in Hebron to work with local Palestinians.