Residents of the Netiv Haavot outpost in Judea vowed Thursday to build dozens of new homes to replace the 15 that were evicted earlier this week on the order of the High Court of Justice.
Despite community leaders' calls for peace and passive resistance, hundreds of settlers, mostly youths, clashed with police. Two minors were arrested, the police said in a statement.
The eviction of the contested Netiv Haavot homes, which infringed on private Palestinian land by only a few yards, was the subject of a lengthy legal battle, mostly over the fact that the Palestinian landowner never came forward.
The settlers, on their part, said they would begin rebuilding their homes immediately.
"The settlement enterprise will only benefit from what happened here," said Amichai Filber, a resident of Elazar, a neighboring settlement.
"The government has already made this decision and instead of the 15 homes that were razed, they will build 300 homes in the area, including in Netiv Haavot. There will be territorial continuity between all the settlements here, so next time, the High Court will think twice before ruling this way," he said.
