Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that his government will combat illegal building by both Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank.
Netanyahu’s comments come days after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered the evacuation of an illegal Israeli settlement with Netanyahu’s backing but in defiance of far-right Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich.
Smotrich, who is a minister in the Defense Ministry responsible for civilian affairs in the West Bank, claimed the outpost was his responsibility and ordered it not be touched.
“We’ll fight against Palestinian illegal building,” promises Netanyahu, adding that “it doesn’t mean that we’ll enable illegal Israeli building” in the West Bank’s Area C, which is under full Israeli control.
“What’s important to me is that all heads of the coalition agree upon this,” the premier adds, in comments seemingly directed at Smotrich.
Netanyahu is speaking at a meeting of his Likud party in the Knesset.
Israel’s Judiciary: Reform or Ruin?
Deri: Judicial system will come up against ‘coalition with foundations of steel’
Aryeh Deri speaks during a Shas party faction meeting, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on January 23, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Shas leader Aryeh Deri attacks the judicial system after his appointment as a minister was ruled “unreasonable in the extreme,” by the High Court of Justice, saying the judicial system would find itself poised against a “coalition with foundations of steel.”
Deri vowed the government would not be deterred.
“The coalition continues, the government continues,” he says.”We won’t let Israel fall.”
Deri slams the judges for not giving an indication of their opposition to his appointments before they were made, even though they were “in the air for a full month.”
Deri says that his legal woes are not his fight alone and that he remains in politics because he wants to promote “governance” and “to respect the definitive Jewish identity of Israel.”
“I am here because I have a real obligation,” he says.
All the coalition heads turn out at the Shas faction meeting at the Knesset as a sign of solidarity with Deri.
