Israeli police and army on Wednesday morning successfully
evacuated most of the right-wing activists from a destroyed West
Bank settlement, local newspaper Ha'aretz reported.
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Some 1,000 police and Israel Defense Forces soldiers arrived at the
ruins of former West Bank settlement of Homesh early Wednesday
morning, where more than 300 right-wing activists had stayed for
two days.
A few minutes after the deadline police had given these Jewish
activists to leave the site, police began forcibly removing them,
picking them up and putting them on buses, the Ha'aretz
report said, quoting police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Police told the activists that Homesh was now a closed military
zone and that they must leave the place immediately.
About 100 activists had packed up their tents and were leaving
voluntarily, Rosenfeld said, adding that there was no apparent
violence.
The activists, mainly youth, arrived at the former settlement on
a march organized by former Homesh residents in an attempt to
reinhabit the community, which was evacuated about a year and a
half ago as part of the disengagement plan.
On Tuesday, police officials warned that should the settlers
fail to evacuate willingly, the government would be inclined to
give the green light for the forceful evacuation of the settlers
who vowed to put up a tough resistance.
Early on Tuesday, settlers punctured the tires of four Border
Police vehicles, and in the afternoon young people burned tires and
placed barricades on the road to Homesh, although they did not
actively block the road to soldiers.
(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2007)
