Radical settler activists worked to rebuild the illegal settlement outpost of Kol Mevaser twice on Wednesday, first during the early hours of the morning, and then after security forces demolished the site, using heavy equipment to lay the ground for rebuilding the outpost in the evening.

Following the demolition by the security services in the morning, some of the settler activists descended the Kol Mevaser hilltop and attacked the nearby Palestinian village of Mukhmas, damaging property and setting fires in an attempt to burn down infrastructure.

Security camera footage from the town showed the extremists setting fires close to buildings on the outskirts of the village.

Later on Wednesday, settler activists staged demonstrations at several junctions around the West Bank in protest at the demolition in Kol Mevaser and other outposts during the course of the last two days.

According to civil rights activists assisting Palestinians in the Mukhmas region in the central West Bank, some 15 activists ascended the hill where Kol Mevaser has been repeatedly built and then demolished by the security services, to erect tents at the site early Wednesday morning.

Border Police and personnel from the Civil Administration then came to remove the tents, although they left a rudimentary wooden home intact. Despite Kol Mevaser being located in a closed military zone, the activists were not detained or arrested.

Settler extremists, many of them masked, then descended from the direction of Kol Mevaser just after 10 a.m. and attacked infrastructure in Mukhmas. Residents have alleged that Kol Mevaser extremists have repeatedly attacked their village.

Barbed wire designed to keep assailants out of the village’s land was cut. Security camera footage showed several extremists setting a fire by a fence protecting a chicken coop. Activists later found burnt cloth which had been used to try and set the coops on fire, the activists said.

A message put out on a WhatsApp group run by the Kol Mevaser activists following the morning’s events said that they managed to prevent the destruction of some of the structures at the outpost.

“Despite the difficulty, we are not broken, and we will continue to build a new one and to settle the Land of Israel,” the message said, and made an appeal for donations to rebuild Kol Mevaser through crowdfunding websites. Many illegal outposts make use of crowdfunding websites to raise money, even though such activity is illegal.

And already by Wednesday evening, earth-moving equipment was being used at Kol Mevaser, apparently to lay the ground for once again reestablishing the outpost. Video footage taken by the activists showed an excavator at work on the hilltop.

The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether the new construction work at Kol Mevaser would be halted and the settler activists removed from the site.

“What happened today would not have happened if the Israeli security forces were enforcing the closed military zone against the people who were in Kol Mevaser when the army was there this morning,” said head of the Torah Tzedek organization, Rabbi Arik Ascherman.

He added that the ongoing failure of the security services to destroy an illegal access road leading from a nearby paved road to Kol Mevaser was what enabled the settler activists to repeatedly rebuild the outpost and maintain their presence in the area.

“The clear goal of the Kol Mevaser outpost is to use violence to force Palestinians out of their homes,” continued Ascherman, noting that the nearby Palestinian Bedouin hamlet of Khalet a-Sidra was recently abandoned due to repeated attacks, allegedly by Kol Mevaser residents.

“They are now working on the village of Mukhmas as well.”

Later Wednesday evening, settler activists prepared to demonstrate around the West Bank. against outpost demolitions

“Enough to persecution of the pioneering settlements — we’re not going back to the Oslo borders,” read a message posted to one WhatsApp group.

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