The Regavim Movement reports that in recent months, an illegal structure has been built near the military base Baal Hazor by Arabs from the village of Malikh, a town located 17 kilometers northeast of Ramallah in the center of Binyamin.

The construction is in Area C, under full Israeli control, and requires a building permit issued by COGAT, the IDF civil administration. No such permit was issued. The illegal construction includes a building, a large hangar, land preparation, agricultural works, and a large warehouse. The land was also cleared for future projects and agricultural use.

The construction and development procedures are being carried out more than 200 meters from the existing buildings in the village of Malikh, effectively creating a new incursion from the village into the open area, allowing potential control of the nearby fields and a security threat to the military base and its access routes. The new construction effectively brings the Arab village closer to the highway, constituting a security threat to civilian travelers. This threat has dire implications in the wake of the October 7th attack when civilians aided Hamas terrorists in infiltrating IDF bases, murdering the soldiers inside.

Regavim also claims that the villages of Turmus-Ayya and Sinjil are attempting to connect to the village of Taybeh to create a continuous Palestinian built-up area, separating the eastern and central Binyamin and enclosing the route leading to the settlements of Kochav Hashachar and Rimmonim, and from there towards the Dead Sea.

In an urgent letter sent this week to Defense Minister Gallant, Central Command Chief Major General Avi Bluth, and the head of the Civil Administration Brigadier General Hisham Ibrahim, Regavim called for prioritizing law enforcement near the base and urgently ordering the removal of the structure and restoring the land to its previous state, as well as initiating criminal proceedings against those who created it.

Meir Deutsch, CEO of Regavim, wrote: “One of the important messages we learned from the events that occurred on the Gaza border before October 7th is the importance of maintaining open fields in general and especially around IDF bases. The security system must wake up immediately and understand that there is no innocent construction: The Palestinian Authority does not stop for a moment its vision of establishing a state.”