The Samaria Regional Council erected the first residential structures on Mount Ebal, around 10 months after Israel’s Cabinet approved the establishment of a new community at the site.

Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, together with the Amana settlement movement, worked overnight to establish the village after receiving formal Interior Ministry approval last month, Dagan said.

“This morning, we’re privileged to feel the wings of history beating,” he said. “To make history together here by establishing a new community this morning on the heights of Mount Ebal—next to the location where Joshua built an altar and where the people of Israel became a nation.”