The Israeli Supreme Court postponed a Dec. 25 deadline for the evacuation of the Amona wildcat settlement in the occupied West Bank, a statement said. The ruling came after the government on Tuesday asked the court for a "final" extension of the deadline to evict 40 families from the outpost.The court had ruled in 2014 that the settlers at Amona, northeast of Ramallah, must go because the outpost was found to have been built on private Palestinian land in the occupied territory. It gave them two years to relocate, ordering they must be gone by Dec. 25, 2016.In a last-ditch effort to avoid evicting the politically influential settlers by force, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came up with a plan Sunday to relocate their hilltop outpost peacefully. A statement from the Supreme Court on Thursday said the evacuation would take place by Feb. 8 at the latest. "This is the last and final postponement, even if no alternative solution is found," the judges warned, pointing out that the government had committed to no further requests for a delay.The court also obtained from the Amona families a formal commitment not to forcefully oppose an evacuation in case of relocation elsewhere.The dispute over whether to demolish the outpost has taken on international importance because of concern over settlement expansion in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.All Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, are seen as illegal under international law, but Israel differentiates between those it has approved and those it has not. Settlements such as Amona are called outposts - those that Israel has not approved.Israeli settlements are seen as major stumbling blocks to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.