Violence flares as illegal settlers fight Israeli forces
BETHLEHEM: Israeli forces continued the evacuation of Amona yesterday, as a synagogue remained the only building left in the illegal outpost after a day of violent resistance by settlers and supporters.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said yesterday morning that police forces were “talking to leaders of the community to deal with the situation and complete the evacuation of the synagogue without major incidents”.
Rosenfeld added that 24 police officers had been slightly injured by Israelis protesting the evacuation of the outpost, who reportedly threw stones, furniture, and unspecified irritating liquids at Israeli forces.
According to the police spokesman, 13 Israelis were detained for “throwing stones at police officers and being involved in disturbances”.
Hundreds of Israelis had gathered on Wednesday to oppose the evacuation and demolition of Amona, which was ordered by the Israeli Supreme Court on the grounds that the outpost was built on private Palestinian land.
Arab Joint List head Ayman Odeh, a member of the Knesset and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, earlier criticised the police’s double standards between use of force in Amona and in Bedouin villages in the Negev. “Amona is being evacuated after being built on Palestinian lands that were stolen 20 years ago, while Umm al-Hiran residents were being evacuated from their own lands, without stealing anyone else’s lands,” Odeh said in a post on Facebook, referring to the deadly evacuation of a Bedouin village in January.
“Unarmed Israeli police is evacuating Amona in broad daylight, where they are being very cautious in dealing with Israeli settlers, while Israeli police carried out demolitions in Umm al-Hiran completely armed,” Odeh added.
The Amona outpost – which, like other settlement outposts, are illegal both under international and Israeli law – was slated for demolition following a 2008 Israeli Supreme Court decision, after eight Palestinians from neighbouring villages successfully petitioned to remove the outpost on grounds that the construction was carried out on privately owned Palestinian land.
After years of appeals from rightwing Israeli government officials, and attempts by Amona settlers to prove they had legally purchased the land, an Israeli police investigation in May 2014 found the entirety of the outpost to have been built on private Palestinian lands, and that the documents used by Amona residents to try and claim their “purchases” were in fact forged.