ISRAELI POLICE have evicted Jewish settlers from a building they said they had bought from a Palestinian in the heart of the West Bank city of Hebron, a frequent flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The presence of the 15 settlers in the two-storey structure had caused divisions within the mainly right-wing cabinet of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, where defence minister Ehud Barak, leader of a centrist party, has pushed for eviction.
Mr Netanyahu had asked Mr Barak to give the settlers more time so they could present legal evidence of their claim to ownership of the building, which has been disputed by Palestinian authorities.
However defence officials said they had entered without the approval of Israeli security authorities in a particularly sensitive area in the occupied West Bank.
A statement issued by Mr Barak’s office hours before yesterday’s eviction said the government had a duty to “uphold the rule of law”. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police and paramilitary border police carried out the eviction in accordance with a government decision.
There was no violence. The settlers had sought to expand a settlement of some 500 Israelis in the heart of Hebron, a biblical city that is home to about 250,000 Palestinians and where enmity between the two groups runs high.
Although politically strong, Mr Netanyahu has faced questions within his Likud party and other right-wing coalition partners about his commitment to the settlers, many of whom see themselves as exercising a Jewish birthright to biblical land.
In an announcement issued just minutes before the settlers were removed from the building, Mr Netanyahu said he would soon ask the government to grant formal status to three West Bank settler outposts built more than a decade ago without state permission.
Mr Netanyahu’s move to approve those outposts retroactively raised speculation he was trying to mollify settler leaders angered by the Hebron eviction.
About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas which, along with the Gaza Strip, were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Most world powers deem the Jewish settlements illegal and Palestinians fear their presence will deny them a viable state. Israel has vowed to keep major settlement blocs under any eventual peace accord with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, it has been announced that Mr Netanyahu and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad will meet later this month, but the rare talks may only sharpen differences that have brought peace negotiations to a standstill.
The Palestinians say they will present Mr Netanyahu with a letter spelling out Israel’s failure to implement a 2003 “road map” that includes a halt to settlement activity as a step towards achieving a final peace agreement.
“The real test in front of Netanyahu is to stop the settlements, after which he will find that we are ready for negotiations,” Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, said. “These aren’t conditions, but what we want him to say is that he’s ready to end the occupation.”
An Israeli government official said Mr Netanyahu would reiterate, at the meeting with Mr Fayyad, his call for peace talks to get under way without any terms for their resumption. – (Reuters)