Israeli police evict settlers from Hebron home

05/07/2006

JERUSALEM (CNN)—Stone throwing, tears and arrests marked the eviction of Jewish settlers from a home in Hebron, as police used a circular saw to cut through the door of the house early Sunday.

The West Bank settlers were living there illegally, police said.

As police worked to gain access to the home, other Jewish settlers threw stones, slightly injuring some officers, a police spokesman said. (Watch police forcibly remove settlers—1:32)

Seventeen settlers were arrested, police said.

According to Reuters, one of the women from the home cried as she left.

“Palestinians will receive much strength today. There is no justice and no righteousness in this corrupt state,” said 40-year-old Tzippora Schlissel.

At least 700 police officers—19 of whom were lightly wounded—took part in the eviction.

After several hours, all three families living in the home had been forcibly evacuated, but it took police a little longer to clear out the settlers who had joined the families inside to try to stop their eviction.

A total of 41 people were removed from the home, police said.

An Israeli court had ruled that the three families had been living illegally in the Palestinian home for a month, and the High Court of Justice ordered security forces to evacuate them by Monday.

“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,” Umm Nemer, a Palestinian mother of eight, told Reuters.

Hebron—in the West Bank about 20 miles south of Jerusalem—is a holy city to Christians, Jews and Muslims. More than 100,000 Palestinians and several hundred Jewish settlers live in Hebron.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a focus of Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who officially moved into the prime minister’s office on Sunday.

“In the next few years, we will change Israel’s character to ensure it will be a state with a solid Jewish majority living in defensible borders that can provide security to the residents of Israel and separate us from those who must live alongside us and not among us,” he said Sunday, according to The Associated Press. (Full story)

Last summer, under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel withdrew from Gaza and Israeli forces forcibly removed about 8,000 settlers from Gaza and four small areas of the West Bank.

Although dramatic scenes of settlers being dragged away by security forces unfolded on television, there was little or no violence.

But on February 1, nearly 3,000 police and soldiers battled about 2,000 Jewish settlers and their supporters at the Amona outpost near the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Full story)

Israeli medical sources said 216 protesters and police were hurt and one officer told CNN it was the most violence he had seen by Jews against Israeli police.