MIGRON  - The residents of Migron, the largest and oldest Israeli settlement outpost in the West Bank, evacuated the site on Sunday ahead of a court-ordered deadline, police said. The outpost in the occupied West Bank, built without Israeli state permission, is on private Palestinian land and in August 2011 Israel’s Supreme Court ordered that it be cleared. The evacuation has been repeatedly delayed in the face of fierce settler opposition, but last week the court said the 50 families resident in the outpost had to be out by the end of Tuesday. “All the families are gone,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.

, noting that most left on their own while some passively resisted and were removed by police forces. “Everything is quiet here.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was pleased that the evacuation of Migron “was concluded via dialogue, in a responsible fashion and without violence.” “This is how it should be, and how it will also be in the future,” he said at a ceremony near Tel Aviv, in remarks relayed by his office. Most families left for temporary housing in the nearby settlement of Ofra, where they will be housed until homes being built for them in the new settlement of Givat Hayekev are ready. The army then declared the outpost a closed military zone, a spokesman said, a move aimed at preventing theft of the property left behind and keeping out rightwing activists.
Defence ministry employees were at work packing the residents’ belongings, a ministry spokesman said.