The Likud party on Tuesday called a Supreme Court ruling that strikes down a 2017 law that retroactively legalizes some 4,000 settlement homes in Judea and Samaria built on privately-owned Palestinian land "unfortunate" and said it would work to re-enact the legislation.
A nine-judge panel voted to repeal the 2017 measure, under which settlers could remain on land if they had built there without prior knowledge of Palestinian ownership, or if homes were built at the state's direction. Eight voted in favor and one against.
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The law "unequally infringes on the property rights of Palestinian residents while giving preference to the proprietary interests of Israeli settlers," Chief Justice Esther Hayut wrote in the panel's ruling.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said "The High Court has lost it. It is turning itself into a legislative body, an executive body, and a judicial body, all at once. We have to put a stop to this."
Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely said, "The High Court has declared war on the right of the Jews to settle in the Land of Israel."
But Blue and White said the law "in its format runs counter to the constitutional situation in Israel, and its legal problems were known at the time of its approval."
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz called the ruling "expected" and added that "the law raised difficult problems even as it was being enacted, and it should never have been passed in the first place. For us to be united as a society, we need to respect the rule of law."
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