The story appears on

Page A10

September 3, 2012

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeWorld

West Bank settlement shut down by Israelis

ISRAEL completed evacuation of a large unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost yesterday, culminating years of legal wrangling in a case that has become a rallying cry for hardline settler groups opposed to any withdrawal from occupied land claimed by the Palestinians.

By midday, all of Migron's roughly 300 residents had left, authorities said, two days ahead of a court-ordered deadline to clear out.

The fate of Jewish settlements lies at the heart of a three-year impasse in Mideast peace efforts. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel continues to expand settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. They say the settlement construction is a show of bad faith.

Most of Migron's residents left voluntarily and peacefully, but officers dragged out a few youths who had holed themselves up in an evacuated trailer home. At another white prefab home, where a toy tractor and a bicycle with training wheels were left discarded outside, several youths climbed to the roof waving a large Israeli flag and refused to come down.

Authorities began loading residents' belongings onto large trucks, to be moved to temporary dwellings in an area settlement before Migron residents move into new homes elsewhere in the West Bank just a few kilometers away as part of a compromise with the residents.

Altogether, police arrested eight youths, all of them non-residents who came to Migron to protest the eviction. There were no reports of injuries.

Some 500,000 Israelis now live on occupied lands, nearly all of them in east Jerusalem or full-fledged settlements in the West Bank. But several thousand live in dozens of unauthorized outposts that dot the West Bank. Israel has repeatedly promised to remove unauthorized outposts, but has taken little action. Built 15 kilometers from Jerusalem, Migron is among the largest outposts.




 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend