HEBRON: Israeli Police Face off with Militant Settlers
CPT via BBSNews 2006-01-18 -- By Jerry Levin. Tuesday afternoon, 17 January, CPTers Tracy Hughes and Bourke and CPTer Jerry Levin Levin observed Israeli police in riot gear pursue several Israeli teenagers and forcibly remove them from the settlement compound of Avraham Avinu in Hebron. The young militants were some of as many as two hundred who, five days earlier, had begun streaming into Hebron to resist the Israeli army and police-planned eviction of Jewish families living in former Palestinian shops.
A series of previous violent clashes between the young militants and police resulted in several arrests being made, a policeman being injured, and Palestinian homes stoned and trashed. The Israelis also set fire to a Palestinian home, from which the Palestinian residents had fled in terror several years ago.
The eviction of the squatters which the Israeli Defense Ministry had announced could take place any time between January 15th and February 15th was halted Monday by a temporary restraining order. While an Israeli court considers a request to make the injunction permanent, the military and police have been moving against the Israeli nonresidents, most of whom because of army and police pressure had left Hebron earlier in the week. Tuesday's action against some of the remaining, who are now vastly outnumbered by the authorities, resulted in twelve apprehensions and expulsions from the city. An angry settler spokesman, David Wilder, speaking to Levin complained that "the State of Israel is impersonating the British which evicted Hebron's Jewish community seventy-five years ago." Such an act, he said,"is evil."
Palestinians have been forbidden access to the Avraham Avinu market place since February 1994. At that time the merchants were abruptly kicked out and the market permanently closed by the Israeli army following the massacre of twenty-nine Palestinians and the wounding of scores of others by an American-born Israeli terrorist, Baruch Goldstein, living in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba.
The mosque, in which the massacre took place, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, is a site holy to the three Abrahamic faiths, who believe it to be built over caves containing the bodies of Abraham, Sarah, Rebekah, Isaac, Leah and Jacob. In 2001, Palestinian militants killed a ten-month-old Israeli girl, Shalhevet Pass who was with her father inside the Avraham Avinu compound. To retaliate, settlers broke into the shops and soon after settler-squatter families moved in and refused to leave.
The outcome of the clashes and evictions wil probably not benefit the former Palestinian owners of the still-occupied shops. The Israeli Defense Ministry has already moved to terminate the Palestinians' leases on which they are still paying taxes. The authorities have also hinted strongly that they may permit other settlers who apply through channels permitted to move in.
Christian Peacemaker Teams is a program of Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite Churches (USA and Canada). The Baptist Peace Fellowship, Every Church a Peace Church, On Earth Peace and The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship are also sponsors of CPT. Christians from other bodies in the ecumenical Christian community are particpants in the 40 member full time Christian Peacemaker Corps and the part time 125 member Reserve Corps. CPTNet is the collective information source used for this story.
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