Amona, Mateh Binyamin

Amona (Hebrew: עמונה‎‎) was an Israeli outpost in the central West Bank. Located on a hill overlooking Ofra within the municipal boundaries of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, the village was founded in 1995 on privately owned Palestinian land. As of 2012, its population was around 200. As of October 2013, the outpost lodged 42 families.

The High Court of Israel ruled in 2006 that the settlement is illegal under Israeli law, but as of March 2013, its status remained unresolved as the Israeli government continued to fight the court's eviction order. In May 2014 an Israeli police investigation revealed the entire outpost lay on private Palestinian land, and that documents used by settlers to claim they had purchased the sites were forged. In December 2014, the Israeli High Court ordered the state to completely evacuate and demolish the settlement within two years. The international community considers all Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law.

Its name is derived from the Book of Joshua 18:24, which mentions Kfar Ha`Ammoni (ketiv, literally, Village of the Amonite) or Kfar Ha`Ammonah (qeri).

Amona was founded in 1995 on private Palestinian land by young settlers from Ofra who thought it was getting too urbanized for their taste. It was one of the first outposts. Amona was constructed on property the Palestinians of Silwad used to cultivate and grow crops on, land that was stolen from them by Ofra teenagers. According to documents of the Israeli Civil Administration, the land had been cultivated and worked by local Palestinians until the outpost was erected, though the settlers claim that the site was a rocky hilltop before.Yesh Din states that Amona is built on the land of three Palestinian villages, Silwad, Ein Yabrud and Taybeh. Amira Hass, interviewing one of the Silwad petitioners, Abed al Rahman Ashur, writes:

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