Five days after the murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach near Havat Gilad in Samaria, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has drafted a proposal to legalize the outpost.

While not mentioning the name of the outpost, a statement released by the Defense Ministry said “a new settlement should be advanced on private Israeli-owned land in the Samaria area.”

Havat Gilad would mostly meet the requirement as the outpost is built on land purchased by Moshe Zar after the murder of his son Gilad, the security coordinator of the Samaria Regional Council, who was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists in 2001.  Some 42 families currently live in the outpost.

In order to accommodate parts of the outpost that may not meet that requirement, the Defense Ministry statement added that the new settlement, which would have its own independent municipal status, “would also absorb residents from the area.”

Yossi Dagan, the head of the Samaria Regional Council welcomed the decision, calling it “the appropriate Zionist response of a national government in the face of a despicable murder.”

“The community of Havat Gilad is a community that was built on land purchased by Moshe Zar after the murder of his son Gilad. There is no more appropriate Zionist response to these murderers than to recognize Havat Gilad,” Dagan said.

Shevach, a 35-year-old father of six, was shot to death in a drive-by shooting near Havat Gilad last week.