Israeli rights groups move to strike down settlement law
JERUSALEM — A pair of Israeli rights groups on Wednesday asked the country’s Supreme Court to overturn a new law legalizing dozens of settler outposts in the West Bank, opening what is expected to be a lengthy legal battle over the contentious legislation.
The legal challenges added new uncertainty to the law, which has drawn fierce international condemnations and been questioned by Israel’s own attorney general.
The law, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist coalition, retroactively legalized thousands of homes found to have been built on private Palestinian land. While its backers claim these homes were built “in good faith,” critics say the law amounts to legalized land theft.
In the first lawsuit against the measure, the Arab rights group Adalah and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center asked the high court to block implementation of the law. It was the first in what is expected to be a series of legal challenges.