Elazar () is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, 18 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Gush Etzion cluster of settlements. A community settlement, it had a population of in . It is administered by the Gush Etzion Regional Council. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, although the Israeli government disputes this. Netiv HaAvot outpost The Netiv HaAvot outpost, officially an expansion of Elazar, 500 meters beyond the Elzar settlement's jurisdiction, and adjacent to Alon Shvut is built on land which some human rights organizations consider privately owned Palestinian agricultural land, the former property of the Mussa family of al-Khader. Local Palestinian villagers say they owned and worked the land until military curfews and closures in the wake of the Al-Aqsa Intifada forced them to abandon it, whereupon settlers moved onto the land to build there in February 2001. An assistant to the Minister of Defence at that time, Brig. Gen. Baruch Spiegel, stated that the outpost was built on privately owned Palestinian land and on "survey land", meaning land whose ownership was still subject to determination. Netiv HaAvot subsequently figured among 105 outposts listed in the Sasson Report submitted to the Israel cabinet in 2005, and the report noted that Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction had by that date spent NIS 300,000 to develop the outpost. Netiv HaAvot has since been the subject of two High Court of Justice petitions. The court ordered the government to form a committee to examine the land ownership issue after 8 Palestinian farmers from al-Khader petitioned for the demolition of the outpost in 2002 on the basis that it was built on their privately owned land. No committee was constituted however. In 2008, a second petition to demolish the outpost was filed by Peace Now, and the state said a committee would be formed to examine land ownership. The office of the State Attorney responded by concurring that the outpost was unauthorized and that action, stop-work orders an demolitions, was being taken. In July 2009, justices ordered the state to provide a "clear timetable for carrying out the orders." The timetable was never produced, On being told by Israeli Labor MP Yuli Tamir, who confronted the residents, that the outpost had been built without permits, the Gush Etzion Council head Shaul Goldstein replied:"I have examined 200 locales around Israel, and they were all