Last update - 00:00 22/12/2006
IDF, police fail to notice evacuated family returned to Hebron home
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
A family that was evacuated from Hebron's wholesale market a year ago secretly returned about four months ago, but was discovered only recently by the Israel Defense Forces and the Civil Administration.
As a result, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court decided it cannot be evacuated via the fast-track method used to evacuate squatters within the first 30 days.
The court also canceled the arrest warrant the police issued against Gershon and Shulamit Bar Kochba and their eight children, and forbid their evacuation until a final decision is made on the case.
Hebron's wholesale market was built on Jewish-owned land, and the original owner, a Jewish nonprofit organization, later transferred it to the Jewish community of Hebron. A year ago, however, all the Jewish families living there were evacuated.
The families consented to the evacuation after a written agreement was reached with the army, under which they would be allowed to return as soon as they arranged to rent the building where they were squatting from the state. But after this agreement became public knowledge, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz canceled it, saying that the army officer who signed it, Major General Yair Golan, had done so in violation of the government's orders.
In the ensuing year, some of the evacuated families found other housing, but others, including the Bar Kochbas, are still homeless. The family therefore decided to return to its former home in the wholesale market.
They soon turned their squat into a regular home, with a telephone line, regular electricity and water payments and guests from all over the country. Nevertheless, the army and police failed to notice until recently.