Israeli Prime Minister’s Office is seeking to increase by tens of millions of shekels the budget for evacuating and resettling residents of the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona according to Haaretz Hebrew newspaper.
It asked the Finance Ministry this week for a further 30-70 million shekels ($8.25-$19.25 million) on top of what is already allocated to develop Amichai the new settlement for those being moved from Amona.
Haaretz has learned that if the requested increase is paid fully the state will have invested close to a quarter of a billion shekels to evacuate and resettle 40 families who had built homes without permits and against the law in Amona.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office denied this report but other sources familiar with the matter have confirmed it.
The sources said the prime minister’s chief of staff Yoav Horowitz asked for the added sum at a meeting this week with officials from several ministries involved in building the new settlement. The meeting was held due to the halt in the new settlement’s construction caused by the lack of funds which none of the ministries was willing to pay.
Until now some 160 million shekels were earmarked for Amona’s evacuation and building Amichai. The sum consists of about 60 million shekels for infrastructure and public structures and 40 million shekels to compensate the evacuated Amona settlers.
