The settlers are in an uproar over actions  being taken by Civil Administration inspectors. Late last night, the inspectors showed up in a number of cities and settlements in the territories, and proceeded to confiscated construction materials and vehicles belonging to contractors working at various building sites. Earlier yesterday, the inspectors traveled from place to place, distributing over 50 freeze orders to contractors. Most of the orders were delivered to the chareidi town, Beitar Illit.

Accompanied by policemen, the inspectors arrived bearing freeze orders for contractors in Ariel, Tekoa, Nokdim, and Matityahu, near Modi'in Ilit. In Ariel, a drilling truck was confiscated last night, after the contractor on site, Avi Ben-Ayun, refused to stop building. Ben-Ayun has been summoned by the police for questioning.

Ben-Ayun claims that all the housing units at his building site have already been sold. "Nobody told me about any freeze orders. Suddenly the inspectors appeared in order to enforce the orders I never received." Ben-Ayun also said that he told the inspectors that the foundations for the housing units had already been laid, which meant the construction could not be categorized as "new". But the inspectors claimed that they had photographs proving that the foundations had been laid after the building freeze order had been issued.

Ron Nachman, mayor of Ariel, was furious, saying that the orders issued by the army to the mayors and settlement heads take away their legal right to approve construction in their jurisdictions. "The orders take away our right to allow (construction) but leave us with the obligation to enforce them," he said. "If my power has been taken away, I don't mean to carry the obligation of responsibility."

The mayor of Ariel added that the construction freeze orders are unprecedented in Israel. "They have turned us into a persecuted group with a population of 300,000 residents, and now together with Peace Now's spy patrols and the Civil Administrations supervisors I feel as though I have returned to the days when I saw my father, an Etzel man, persecuted by the Haganah," he told YNET in an interview, referring to the time of the British mandate. "All of a sudden, I have been taken back to the events I witnessed as a child, during the War of Independence."

Nachman had harsh criticism for the Minister of Defense, saying that Barak, "decided to act against the settlements in Yehuda and Shomron, and the settlement leaders, using methods he employed as head of the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit in Beirut and other place, against leaders of Ashaf and other terror cells. He must be losing his emotional intelligence in his old age… This is a well planned military operation, aimed at purging the country of crime families – no other than the heads of the Yehuda and Shomron settlements."