IDF troops and police officers demolished the Ramat Migron outpost this morning in the West Bank. The security forces reportedly tore down four buildings, including the homes of three families and a makeshift yeshiva. Settlers in the place complained of policy brutality, but the police spokesperson rejected the claims, arguing that the evacuation was orderly and conducted according to the law.

Ramat Migron is not far from the relocated site of the original Migron outpost, 14 kilometers north of Jerusalem and near the Palestinian city of Ramallah. Both outposts have been the scenes of controversies and legal disputes. Settler residents have clashed several times with local Palestinians, with both sides blaming each other for violence. The first Migron was evacuated in 2012, under the Benjamin Netanyahu government, following a court ruling that it was built on private Palestinian land. Most of its occupants were offered relocation to a nearby hill. Still, a few houses still stand on the original site and are the topic of a legal dispute.

The evacuation of Ramat Migron comes on the backdrop on another ongoing controversy over the dismantlement of the Homesh West Bank outpost. Homesh, in the northern Samaria region, was first evacuated in 2005, in the framework of the Gaza withdrawal. Thus, by law, Israelis are forbidden from entering the premises. Still, over the years, right-wing activists have repeatedly tried to resettle the place, establishing a makeshift yeshiva on the hill.

The government came under pressure not to evacuate Homesh after the 2021 killing of Israeli settler Yehuda Dimentman by Palestinian assailants. Until then, the IDF had sent troops to evacuate the makeshift buildings every few months, but such efforts have halted since the killing.