Former settlement to return to Palestinian hands

The land where a West Bank settlement once stood before its evacuation during Israel's 2005 disengagement, is finally to be returned to its Palestinian owners, an Israeli NGO said on Sunday. Legal rights group Yesh Din said state attorneys told the Supreme Court last week the government would revoke a 1978 military seizure order relating to land belonging to the Palestinian village of Burka in the northern West Bank. "We know that the seizure order is going to be cancelled," Yesh Din spokeswoman Reut Mor told AFP. "It is a process (but) if the state says this to the court, it probably won't go back on it," she said. After Israel confiscated the land, it was used to set up the Homesh settlement which was evacuated along with three others in the area as part of Israel's withdrawal of all soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip. Although the settlement was dismantled, the land has remained off limits to its Palestinian owners because of the military order. In December 2011, Burka residents and Yesh Din petitioned the High Court to cancel the military requisition order and the court had been due to debate the subject on Wednesday. But late last week, the state told the court it would cancel the orders meaning there was no need for this week's session. "We have to wait until it's really official," Mor said, indicating that Yesh Din would not withdraw the petition until it saw concrete evidence on the ground. "They have yet to sign that it's really cancelled," she added. Mor said the government would also need to revoke other orders declaring the former settlement off-limits to all civilians. "We know sadly from experience that even when Israel recognises private Palestinian ownership of land, it doesn't mean that will allow them access to their land."