Two Palestinians Sue Beit El Settlers

Two Palestinians have filed a petition in the Israeli High Court demanding that several homes in the illegal Jewish colonial settlement of Beit El east of Ramallah in the West Bank be destroyed because they were built on privately-owned Arab land.

Five are permanent buildings, and five others are temporary structures that were set up in 2003. The Arab plaintiffs say the court must order the illegal settlers of Beit El to stop all activity in the area.

The suit demanded NIS 1.5 million in exchange for pain and loss allegedly caused by the colony's existence.

The plaintiffs are being assisted by the Israeli group Yesh Din. The same group has demanded that Israel demolish houses in the colony of Ofra, and earlier this month it helped a group of Palestinians file a suit against the lately illegally built colony of Migron.

Yesh Din says that the houses in Beit El, where more than 1,000 settlers live, were built on Palestinian land that was confiscated by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). The IOF banned Palestinians from the area allegedly for security reasons, the group explained.