Israeli soldiers drag settlers out of Hebron house

[December 05, 2008]  HEBRON, West Bank (AP) -- Israeli soldiers and police stormed a disputed building in the biblical city of Hebron on Thursday, dragging out 250 young settlers in a raid meant to send a warning to Jewish extremists fighting to keep what they see as God-promised land.

But activists responded with a wave of attacks on Israeli forces and Palestinians in the West Bank, even as Israeli politicians and some settler leaders denounced them.

This city of 170,000 Palestinians, with about 600 of the most extreme Jewish settlers living among them in small enclaves, is the traditional burial site of Abraham, the shared patriarch of both Jews and Muslims, and has been a focal point of Israeli-Arab violence for decades.

Extremist settlers say they want to expel all Palestinians from the city and have sought to expand their footholds here as part of a militant campaign to pressure Israel to hold on to all of the West Bank.

Settlers moved in to the four-story building in March 2007 claiming they bought it from a Palestinian. The man denied selling it, and Israeli authorities did not recognize the sale as legal. Israel's Supreme Court ordered the house vacated last month, but settlers refused.

In the surprise raid, some 600 soldiers and officers police rushed into the house and quickly began dragging out people one by one, their hands and legs held by teams of two or four officers.

Settlers, including young girls, punched and hit soldiers. Others threw acid, police said. Security officers in full riot gear fired stun grenades and tear gas.

Extremists tried to force their way back inside, but soldiers, who cleared the structure in just 20 minutes, formed a human chain to keep them out.

After losing the battle, the mostly teenage settlers rioted, setting fires near at least three Palestinian houses and burning nine cars, the Palestinian fire chief said.

Palestinians cowered in their homes as settlers pelted the buildings with rocks. Jewish children went on a rampage breaking windows, while Palestinians on rooftops threw stones at settlers and Israeli security forces below.

About 35 settlers and soldiers were reported injured during the eviction, none of them seriously. Palestinian hospital officials said 17 Palestinians were wounded, including five by bullets.

The Israeli rights group B'Tselem released video that appeared to show a settler shooting a Palestinian in the stomach at point-blank range, and Palestinians pelting the settler with rocks.

In other parts of the West Bank, settlers threw rocks at Palestinian vehicles and burned an olive grove, Palestinians said.

The Palestinian governor in the Nablus region, Jamal Moheisen, warned that if Israeli forces did not bring the settlers under control, "we will call on the Palestinian residents to go out to the streets and fight back."

In a statement late Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that "violent elements" who attack Palestinians will "face a quick, stern response from security forces."

After nightfall, settlers were still scuffling with Israeli forces and Palestinians.

The raid on the building that settlers named the "House of Peace" was the first major West Bank eviction since a 2006 confrontation that injured dozens, but the violent reaction of extremist settlers suggested it might not be the last.

Settlers have built more than 100 unauthorized outposts on West Bank hilltops, but despite promises to the U.S. that they would be removed, Israel's government has failed to take them down, instead building roads and providing services for some of them.

Though the government sought to intimidate extremists with the swift assault in Hebron, further defiance is likely to be the response from militant settlers. They believe God gave the West Bank to the Jews and no one has the right to take it away.

About 275,000 Jewish settlers live among 1.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel wants to hold on to major blocs of West Bank settlements in a land-for-peace deal with Palestinians, offering to trade Israeli territory for about 10 percent of the West Bank.

Hebron is a crucible of the most extreme religion-driven settlers, and the only place with settlers and Palestinians in the same city. Clashes are frequent.

Many of the most violent young Jews came to Hebron from other parts of the West Bank, including their leader, Daniella Weiss, a firebrand from the territory's north. Weiss has led shrill opposition to efforts to rein in the most aggressive settlers, backing their creation of the unauthorized settlements to try to prevent an Israeli pullback and creation of a Palestinian state.

"Daniella Weiss and her gang should leave Hebron. They don't belong here," Pinchas Wallerstein, director of the Settlers Council, told Israel Radio just hours before the evacuation.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he ordered the army to evict the settlers after all attempts to persuade them to leave peacefully failed. Barak met with settler leaders earlier in the day, but they failed to reach an agreement.

Some settler leaders reacted angrily to the raid.

"This could have been done peacefully and legally. Instead Barak chose violence," said Danny Dayan, leader of the Settlers Council. "This surprised us completely."

[Associated Press; By AMY TEIBEL]

Associated Press writer Nasser Shiyoukhi contributed to this report.

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