The High Court on Thursday will consider a petition by the far left Peace Now group to immediately evict the residents of Migron from their homes, and reject the compromised agreement worked out with residents. The agreement gives the government three and a half years to move the residents to a site several hundred meters away.

MKs of left wing party Meretz toured Migron on Wednesday, speaking to Arabs who claim that they own the land the residents´ homes are built on. Residents reject the Arab claims, saying that throughout years of court cases, the Arabs had not brought any substantial proof that the land was theirs.

The current site of Migron is supposed to be evacuated by the end of this month, a previous High Court decision said. But in recent weeks the government worked out an agreement with residents, whereby they would move their homes to state-controlled lands. Under the agreement, Migron would be designated a neighborhood of Kochav Ya´akov, under the jurisdiction of the Binyamin Regional Council. The agreement stipulates that the residents will move into their new homes by November 30, 2015.

The government stated that it had also been considering moving Migron residents to temporary quarters at the end of the month, in order to fulfill the “letter and spirit” of the High Court decision. However, it decided to reject that idea, in order not to require Migron residents to undertake a difficult move twice in such a short period of time.

Residents say that the land belongs to them, and that as far as they are concerned, Peace Now and the Arabs they are representing have no legal ground to stand on. Nevertheless, they said, they agreed to move the site of Migron in order to avoid tragic scenes of Jewish soldiers and police evicting small children from their homes in the dead of night, scenes that would only increase dissension and bad feelings between Israelis. (IsraelNationalNews © 2012 03/22/12)