Settlers cleared from Hebron

30 Nov -0001, 12:00 am   -   Source: AFP
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Two buildings in Hebron are being cleared by Israeli soldiers (GETTY)

Two buildings in Hebron are being cleared by Israeli soldiers (GETTY)

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.

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.
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