Ultra-nationalist Israelis, Palestinians clash in Hebron

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1001371 [headline] => Ultra-nationalist Israelis, Palestinians clash in Hebron [abstract] => At least 13 Palestinians and one Israeli were wounded as ultra-nationalist Israelis clashed with residents in Hebron. [keywords] => Israel, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Hebron, settlers, violence, clashes [content] =>

At least 13 Palestinians and one Israeli were wounded on Tuesday as ultra-nationalist Israelis clashed with residents and police in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.

 

The rioting broke out as rumours spread that security forces were set to evict 100 Jewish settlers from a house the Israeli high court has ordered evacuated.

 

Young settlers, backed by right-wing supporters, hurled rocks for several hours at Palestinian homes and police vehicles. Police at one point fired teargas grenades at the protesters.

At least 13 Palestinians were wounded and significant damage was caused to homes in Hebron, medics and witnesses said.

One Jewish activist was later seriously wounded after being hit in the head by a rock thrown at him by Palestinians as the clashes continued throughout the day, the army said.

On November 16, the Israeli High Court ordered the settlers to leave the Hebron house in which they have lived since March 2007, but security forces have not enforced the order to date.

The settlers insist they have bought the house, which the alleged Palestinian seller denies. The court ordered the settlers to leave the building until ownership can be determined.

Since the eviction order was issued, the settlers have been involved in several clashes and desecrated a mosque and a cemetery.

Dozens of settlers in the northern West Bank also clashed with Palestinians and border police, and blocked roads in a show of support for the Israelis Living in the house. Graffiti insulting Prophet Mohammed, as well as stars of David were spray painted on mosques in the area on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the father of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, one of four Israelis killed in the attack on Mumbai's Chabad centre, asked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert not to order the evacuation of the controversial house during the mourning period so as "to maintain the unity of Israel."

With more than 170,000 Palestinian residents, Hebron is the largest city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank apart from annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

It has long been a flashpoint because of a settler enclave of around 600 hardline Jews in the heart of the city, and a further 6,500 settlers living in Kiryat Arba on the outskirts.
 

 

[start_date] => 03 December 2008 | 05:30:34 PM [comments_allowed] => 1 [source] => AFP [commentCount] => 1 [video] => [image] => [audio] => [reporter] => [relatedLinks] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 127932 [label] => Settlers cleared from Hebron [display_order] => 2 [type] => Article ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 118527 [label] => Jewish settlers evicted [display_order] => 3 [type] => Article ) [2] => Array ( [id] => 116538 [label] => Clashes as settlers evicted [display_order] => 4 [type] => Article ) [3] => Array ( [id] => 116519 [label] => Israel to quell angry settlers [display_order] => 5 [type] => Article ) ) [relatedArticles] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [article_id] => 127932 [headline] => Settlers cleared from Hebron [abstract] => Hundreds of Israeli border guards have moved in to clear Jewish settlers out of two houses they had been occupying in the West Bank town of Hebron. [content] => Hundreds of Israeli border guards have moved in to clear Jewish settlers out of two houses they had been occupying in the West Bank town of Hebron.

The border guards and other police surrounded the buildings where two families of squatters had barricaded themselves in, backed by dozens of young ultra-nationalist Jews, and brought them out one by one.

The security forces had to break open the doors, making arrests as demonstrators threw stones at them. There were some slight injuries.

For the government it was a question of asserting its authority after the courts had ordered the evacuation, while for the Israeli extreme right it was important to show the great difficulty in removing just a few settlers to prove that the precedent of the retreat from the Gaza Strip would not be repeated.

Soldiers imprisoned

Israel's army says it sentenced several soldiers to one month's imprisonment for refusing to take part in the forced removal of the settlers.

"Of the dozen soldiers -- 10 ordinary ranks and two officers -- tried for 'refusing to obey orders' several were sentenced to four weeks in military prison," a military spokesman says.

The soldiers were among some 3,000 troops and border police removing the two families who for months have illegally squatted inside two houses in Hebron's wholesale market.

The mutinous soldiers, most of them religious, told their commanding officers that they would refuse to join in the operation to evacuate the Hebron market, the army says in a statement.

Zvi Handel, an extreme-right opposition lawmaker, expressed support for the insubordinate soldiers.

"I am proud that we have soldiers who think before obeying illegal orders and refuse to be part of a political game," he says.

Support from rabbis

Several rabbis close to the settler movement have also thrown their weight behind the soldiers.

The families squatting in the market claim that the property is Jewish.

Under an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, Israel evacuated 80 percent of Hebron in 1997, leaving a settlement of several hundred Jewish settlers, protected by soldiers, around the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- a site holy to both Jews and Muslims. [content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 7 August 2007 [articletime] => 7 August 2007 [display_order] => 2 ) [1] => Array ( [article_id] => 118527 [headline] => Jewish settlers evicted [abstract] => Israeli police have stormed a Palestinian house in the West Bank city of Hebron to evict Jewish settlers accused of squatting there, in an early test for the new government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. [content] => Israeli police have stormed a Palestinian house in the West Bank city of Hebron to evict Jewish settlers accused of squatting there, in an early test for the new government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Police persuaded three settler families, including women and children, to leave but had to drag or carry out two dozen teenage supporters holed up inside the house, near a heavily fortified Jewish settlement in the biblical city.

Security forces had scuffled with scores of settlers outside after some threw petrol bombs from the roof of the three-storey building and others hurled rocks. Police arrested 19 settlers, while 17 policemen were lightly injured.

"We will respond immediately to any case where there is a violation of the law and any attempt to determine facts on the ground," Mr Olmert told the first meeting of his new cabinet.

The house was not within the enclave of Hebron that Israel recognises as a Jewish settlement, and its evacuation offered a taste of what may happen if Mr Olmert implements his plan to impose final borders for Israel by 2010.

In the absence of peace talks with the Palestinians, the plan calls for dozens of isolated Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank to be evacuated, while major blocks are retained and expanded behind a fortified border.

"In the next few years, we will change Israel's character to ensure it will be a country with a solid Jewish majority living in defensible borders that can provide security for residents of Israel and separate us from those who live alongside us and not among us," Mr Olmert said at a ceremony marking his move into the prime minister's office.

Mr Olmert added settler violence would not be tolerated.

"We shall not accept thuggery and attempts to illegally establish facts on the ground," he said. He also made clear spending on illegal Jewish settlements will be vastly reduced and will instead be concentrated on relatively underdeveloped areas such as the southern Negev and northern Galilee regions.

Mr Olmert took over as interim prime minister in January after Ariel Sharon was incapacitated by a stroke, but he had not worked out of the prime minister's office until the weekend, three days after his coalition government was sworn in.

Deadline for peace talks

Jordan's King Abdullah said Mr Olmert's plan set an effective deadline for currently stalled peace efforts.

"The time available to us for a peaceful settlement is around two years and I fear, if this short time is over and we don't reach a settlement, there will be nothing left for the Palestinians to negotiate over," he told al-Arabiya television.

The settlers moved into the house last month, saying it had been bought from its Palestinian owners legally. Palestinian groups denied this, suspecting a gradual attempt to expand the settlement, despised as a symbol and reminder of occupation.

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the settlers to be evicted pending a ruling on ownership. Police said 41 settlers had been inside the house, refusing to leave. The police used an electric saw and a sledgehammer to break in.

Some of the women from the families wept as they walked out. "Palestinians will receive much strength today. There is no justice and no righteousness in this corrupt state," said Tzippora Schlissel, 40.

But there was relief among Palestinian neighbours. "The last month has been very difficult for us. We have had stones thrown at us and our electricity and water tampered with. I wish all the settlers in Hebron would leave," said Umm Nemer, a 43-year-old mother of eight.

Mr Olmert has not said what his plan would mean for the 400 settlers in Hebron, who live among 130,000 Palestinians. The city, a flashpoint of the conflict, is holy to both Jews and Muslims as the burial place of biblical patriarchs.

Last year Israel evacuated 9,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and a remote northern part of the West Bank, amid widespread resistance.

In February about 200 protesters and police were injured in clashes when Israel dismantled part of an unauthorised settler outpost in the West Bank. Police said it was the fiercest violence they had ever faced from Israeli Jews.

About 240,000 settlers live in the West Bank among 2.4 million Palestinians and Mr Olmert's plan would involve moving about a quarter of them.

The Palestinians reject his plan out of hand, saying it means an annexation of their land that will permanently deny them the viable state they want in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The World Court has branded all Israeli settlements built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal. Israel disputes this.

Buffett invests

In a significant boost to Mr Olmert's economic policy, the US investor Warren Buffett closed a deal over the weekend to acquire the Galilee-based metalworks company Iscar for US$4 billion - giving the Israeli government a tax windfall of around US$1 billion.

"This is not merely an investment of billions of dollars. This is the largest investor on the face of the earth," Mr Olmert told reporters on Sunday.

"He (Buffet) is not Jewish, nor is he a Zionist. The Israeli economy is such that he believes in it and supports it," he said.
[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 8 May 2006 [articletime] => 8 May 2006 [display_order] => 3 ) [2] => Array ( [article_id] => 116538 [headline] => Clashes as settlers evicted [abstract] => Israeli border police have moved into the heart of Hebron to evict dozens of Jewish hardliners after clashes over plans to evict settlers from a Palestinian marketplace in the city. [content] => Israeli border police have moved into the heart of Hebron to evict dozens of Jewish hardliners after clashes over plans to evict settlers from a Palestinian marketplace in the city.

Taunted by ultra-nationalist youths, police detained young people and put them into vans in an attempt to evacuate them forcibly from an Israeli enclave in the heart of the flashpoint southern West Bank town.

Helmeted border police wearing bullet-proof vests and armed with truncheons gathered outside the Jewish enclave before sweeping through its narrow alleyways.

But the operation disintegrated into confusion when officers realised they had detained some young residents of the Jewish settlement rather than protestors from elsewhere who had descended on the enclave to stir up trouble.

The Israeli authorities have vowed zero tolerance towards Jewish families resisting eviction from a market in the flashpoint town, following weekend clashes between militant Jewish settlers and security forces.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who in Hebron faces one of his first major challenges since the incapacitation of Ariel Sharon following a massive stroke, said he had given "extremely firm orders against troublemakers".

"We will not allow a handful of outlaws, masked delinquents, impose their will on us. We will act very strongly to their opposition," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told public radio.

Settler deadline

Around 150 young people aged between 16 and 18 were believed to have remained in the town after the expiry of a deadline for them to leave.

But a settler leader maintained that non-residents left Hebron quietly following an army deadline for them to leave by 10:00 am (0800 GMT) on Tuesday.

"They will return at an opportune moment when we need them," said Noam Arnon, a spokesman for the Hebron setters.

The parts of Hebron under army control were declared a closed military zone in a bid to flush out hardliners who descended on the town to boost resistance to the threatened eviction of around 50 Jews squatting in the market.

Hundreds of police reinforcements have been drafted to the area and the ban on non-resident Israelis entering the centre will last until Sunday.

The authorities are determined to remove nine Jewish families, around 50 people, squatting illegally in a Palestinian fruit and vegetable market.

But hardliners vowed to push ahead with the resistance to any planned evictions from what they regard as a sacred part of the land of Israel.

Ultra-right-wing MP Benny Elon said he had come to "support the just fight of the Jews of Hebron".

Shlomo Yetkowitz, a man from Israel's business capital wore an orange T-shirt, the colour of opposition to last year's uprooting of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, marked with the words "I am a settler of Tel Aviv".

"What is happening in Hebron can happen in Tel Aviv. The Arabs want to kick us out of the entire country," he said.

Opposition Labour party leader Amir Peretz blamed the government for failing to solve the wider problem of unauthorised Jewish outposts on occupied Palestinian land which he called a "stain on Israeli democracy".

In 2003, the Supreme Court backed an appeal by Palestinian traders, ordered the settlers to be evicted and the market reopened, but neither of the two court orders have yet been implemented.

The market was closed 12 years ago after Baruch Goldstein, an extremist settler, shot dead 29 Palestinians praying in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, a shrine holy to both Jews and Muslims.

Under a 1997 accord with the Palestinian Authority, Israeli troops evacuated 80 percent of the city but continue to protect some 600 settlers living around the Cave of the Patriarchs.

Peace talks

Meanwhile Mr Olmert said he hoped to renew peace talks with the Palestinians after elections in March, but only if militant groups are disarmed first.

Mr Olmert's comments on peacemaking prospects were his most detailed since he took over from Ariel Sharon and echoed the position set out by Israel's incapacitated leader, who suffered a massive stroke on January 4.

Opinion polls put Mr Olmert, 60, well ahead to win the election on March 28 at the helm of the centrist Kadima party that Mr Sharon founded, just weeks before his stroke, to campaign on a platform of ending conflict with the Palestinians.

Mr Olmert said he hoped for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after both Israel's election and a January 25 Palestinian ballot, in which Mr Abbas's party faces a challenge from Islamic militant group Hamas - sworn to destroying Israel.

"I hope that based on the results of their elections, and after that the results of our elections, I will be able to enter negotiations," Mr Olmert told reporters.

But Mr Olmert emphasised that any talks would depend on whether
Mr Abbas "will uphold his commitments to disarm the terror groups".

In a sign attitudes might one day shift, Israeli President Moshe
Katsav said talks with Hamas might one day be possible if it disarmed and abandoned its pledge to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

A Hamas spokesman said in response the group had no intent to disarm and was "committed to resistance against occupation".

Mr Sharon always ruled out talks on Palestinian statehood before disarmament, meant to begin under a US-backed peace road map.

Israel has not met its own commitment under the plan to freeze Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

"We want Mr Olmert or whoever becomes prime minister to implement Israeli obligations," said top Palestinian negotiator
Saeb Erekat.

"The Palestinian Authority is committed to implementing its obligations as well."

Mr Sharon's position was that Israel would one day have to give up some West Bank settlements following a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year, but he always insisted that the biggest settlement blocs would stay.

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 18 January 2006 [articletime] => 18 January 2006 [display_order] => 4 ) [3] => Array ( [article_id] => 116519 [headline] => Israel to quell angry settlers [abstract] => Israel has drafted hundreds of police reinforcements to the West Bank town of Hebron in a bid to quell what the media has dubbed the ‘Jewish intifada’ - sparked by plans to evacuate settlers in the city. [content] => Israel has drafted hundreds of police reinforcements to the West Bank town of Hebron in a bid to quell what the media has dubbed the ‘Jewish intifada’ - sparked by plans to evacuate settlers in the city.

The army has slapped a ban on non-resident Israelis from entering the town centre until January 22 in a bid to stop demonstrations.

If follows two days of clashes with Jewish settlers.

Dozens of police have searched houses in the Jewish quarter, preventing residents from returning to their homes, and taking up position on rooftops and outside front doors.

"We decided to demonstrate our toughness and the police presence will be permanent in order to counter the troubles," said Hebron officer Avi Harroch.

A furious Noam Arnon, a spokesman for the Jewish community, accused police of violating the law for not first showing a search warrant.

"We expect police to respect the law," he said.

“The sector of the Jewish quarter of Hebron and the access routes leading to it are declared a closed military zone," a military statement said.

“Hundreds of Israeli citizens have taken part in violent demonstrations in the quarter of the Jewish community of Hebron against security forces as well as the Palestinian residents and their property," the statement continued.

Zero tolerance

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has vowed zero tolerance towards Jewish families resisting eviction.

"This incident revolves around a particularly violent group," Kadima spokeswoman Maya Jacobs quoted Mr Olmert as telling party members, saying he had ordered the security forces to act decisively towards the rioters.

"Whoever raises his hand against the security forces will not be forgiven," he said.

"There is no justification for this and it will not be tolerated."

Media reports said the army had warned it would arrest any masked demonstrator or stone-thrower.

The unrest is one of the first major challenges facing Acting Prime Minister Olmert.

Israel's largest newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, decrying the situation the "Jewish Intifada in Hebron", a reference to the five-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has reiterated his determination to remove nine Jewish families squatting illegally in a Palestinian fruit and vegetable market in the city, vowing that the authorities will not be intimidated by violence.

The settler families - about 50 people - have taken over some of the stalls and neighbouring buildings of the closed market.

Hundreds of hardline settlers hurled eggs and stones at security forces on Saturday and Sunday.

"On Sunday, I ordered an extra 250 police to deploy to Hebron. We want to apply the law by arresting those responsible for the disturbances so they can be put on trial," Moshe Karadi, Israel's police chief, told public radio.

Settlers moved into the market after Palestinian gunmen killed a baby girl in 2001, arguing that Jews had the property before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

In 2003, the Supreme Court backed an appeal by Palestinian traders, and ordered the settlers to be evicted and the market reopened -- neither of which has happened.

Local police commander Shlomo Ephrati said a definite date for the eviction would be determined by a court.

The BBC says Israeli settlers continue to be angry about their government’s decision to withdraw from 25 Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinian compensation

Israel’s Defence Ministry has ordered an investigation to assess the cost of the damage incurred by Palestinian shopkeepers, in Hebron, that has been carried out by carried out by settlers, with a view to compensate them.

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 17 January 2006 [articletime] => 17 January 2006 [display_order] => 5 ) ) [comments] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [articles_ugc_id] => 15828 [author] => William [source] => Sydney [content] => Poor poor israelis and palestinians, can they not see that no one wins. What a small battle in the context of such a great war that seems to go on with no end in sight. Sad. [user_headline] => Wow [comment_date] => 04 Dec 2008 11:43 AEST [agree] => 0 [disagree] => 0 ) ) ) [winston] => test )