Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu called on government ministers Thursday to live in Jericho, during a tour of homes purchased on the city’s outskirts and now inhabited by Jewish families. “I should have come here with my wife to choose a house to live in,” the minister explained, adding that “just as ministers from the government of Israel live in Hebron, so too ministers from the government of Israel should live in Jericho.”
1+The families moved into the homes last night in a covert purchase operation revealed by our correspondent Eliya Aviv and led by the Nahalah movement with backing from the Binyamin Regional Council. According to the council, the homes are located on state land in Area C, near the Hasmonean palaces—the winter palaces of the Hasmonean kings and Herod. Leaders of the initiative confirmed that the homes were purchased with full payment and that the transactions are backed by ownership documents.
1+“Jericho is the gateway of the people of Israel to their land. In the Oslo Accords, Israel abandoned it, and we are paying the price of that retreat to this day,” declared Binyamin Regional Council head and Yesha Council chairman Israel Gantz, adding that the Jewish pioneers have begun dismantling the accords in practice, house by house. Jericho was among the first cities transferred to Palestinian Authority control under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement signed in 1994.