The High Court clarified on Monday that the state’s next update in the Ras Ein al-Auja case is due by May 14, after petitioners returned to court arguing that the deadline had already passed and that the state had still not reported on steps ordered months ago.
The case concerns the Palestinian Bedouin herding community of Ras Ein al-Auja, north of Jericho, whose residents say they were forced to leave the area after sustained settler pressure, including harassment, damage to infrastructure, and interference with grazing access and movement routes.
In February, the court ordered the state to help enable residents’ return to a defined part of the community, in coordination with the authorities, and to submit an update within 60 days on what had been done.
State argues that the request was premature
When no such update was filed by the required date, they returned to court and asked the justices to intervene again. In response, the state argued that the request was premature.
It said the 60-day count should be calculated differently because part of that period fell under the special emergency court footing declared at the end of February, and that the correct deadline was therefore May 14, not an earlier date this month.
That position effectively turned the latest round of litigation into a fight not yet over what had been done on the ground, but over when the state was actually required to say what it had done.
The state also said that the matter was still being reviewed by security and professional officials. It argued that petitioners could have tried to coordinate a return through the framework already outlined by the court rather than immediately seeking further judicial relief.
In a short decision issued on Monday, Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg appeared to settle the timing dispute, writing that under the court’s February 4 decision, the state’s update is due by May 14.
The ruling does not resolve the underlying petition or the question of what practical steps the state has taken to facilitate residents’ return. But it does give the state several more weeks before it must formally update the court.
Thus, it extends a case that has already stretched on through repeated procedural wrangling, with the latest dispute centered on the state’s own reading of when its deadline began to run.