Who they are
Orit Strook is the settlements and national missions minister and founded the Human Rights Organisation in Judea and Samaria. She was born in Jerusalem in 1960 to Yehuda and Esti Cohen, a traditional family of Hungarian origin. She went to the Leyada high school, became religious in the eleventh grade and studied at Gesher and Machon Meir, then did national service at Bikur Cholim hospital. She moved to Yamit before the withdrawal from Sinai, and after its evacuation to Hebron.
In Hebron she joined the Women’s Committee for the Cave, which lobbied to reopen the Cave of the Patriarchs to Jewish prayer after the 1994 massacre there closed it, and from 2000 she headed the community’s legal and political department. She set up the human rights organisation in 2002, after the Ozeri family’s home at an outpost was demolished a month after the father was murdered in it, and led it unpaid until 2012, filing complaints and suits over the handling of protesters at the disengagement and at Amona.
She stood for the Knesset in 2006 without winning a seat, then ran the Land of Israel Lobby, which brought about the law against boycotts of Israel. Once elected she passed an age discrimination law in 2014 extending the ban to goods, services and patients’ rights. She returned in 2021 and took the settlements portfolio when the 37th government was formed.
Positions and record
Settlement: Double Judea and Samaria's population in a decade.
Hostages: Argued for defeating Hamas even at risk to negotiations.
Rights: Founded a civil-rights organization for Judea and Samaria residents.
Where they stand
Holds the Religious Zionism line on every issue.