Israeli police evacuate Jewish settlers from West Bank
ISRAELI police have started evacuating Jewish settlers from 15 homes built illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Dozens of settlers protested against the evacuation, with some throwing stones and bottles at police.
A few scuffles ensued with police but for the most part, demonstrators offered passive resistance and were carried away by officers who grabbed hold of their arms and legs.
In one home, an Israeli policeman hugged a weeping man as he escorted him out.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said three officers were lightly wounded in the scuffles and that police arrested two people.
Protesters opposed to the move also blocked the entrance to Jerusalem, jamming traffic.
Mr Rosenfeld said the evacuation proceeded mostly smoothly, with families leaving their homes without resisting.
After the eviction, Israeli forces are expected to demolish the structures in the Netiv Ha’avot outpost. The government said it will compensate the residents and rebuild their homes on nearby lands that are not privately owned.
Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the eviction because the homes were built on private Palestinian land.
A law passed last year legalising dozens of settler outposts in the West Bank is being challenged at the High Court.
Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war.
However, most countries consider all Israeli settlements built in the West Bank and other land captured in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal.
Israel disputes this, and there are now 500,000 Israeli settlers living among some 2.6 million Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
The entire Netiv Ha’avot settlement was built without official Israeli authorisation, but the government has retroactively agreed to allow the rest of the community to stay once the 15 homes built on private Palestinian land come down.
“People are being torn from their houses and families are sad,” said Elazar Herz Van Spiegel, 45, a Netiv Ha’avot settler, whose home was not one of those due to be demolished. “But ... we are very optimistic about the future.”