Description

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israeli police evicted Jewish settlers Wednesday from a building they said they had bought from a Palestinian in the heart of the West Bank city of Hebron.

The presence of the 15 settlers in the two-story structure had caused divisions within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mainly right-wing cabinet, where Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of a centrist party, has pushed for eviction.

Netanyahu had asked 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.

But security officials said the settlers had entered without the approval of Israeli security authorities in a particularly sensitive area in the occupied West Bank. A statement issued by Barak's office hours before the 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 an illegal settlement of some 500 Israelis in the heart of Hebron, a city that is home to about 250,000 Palestinians.

Though politically strong, 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, 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.

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.

Settlements are illegal under international law.


_____________

4/4/2012 2 am

Eviction slated to take place by April 25.

By Barak Ravid and Chaim Levinson and Ophir Bar-Zohar for Haaretz

The cabinet decided late last night to evict the settlers who were illegally squatting in a Hebron residence this week. The eviction is slated to take place by April 25.

Legal advisors explained that the Hebron eviction must take place within 30 days of the takeover of the home.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman slammed Defense Minister Ehud Barak's tough stand against the settlers who invaded the house in Hebron. Lieberman hinted Barak's insistence on evicting the settlers could undermine the coalition.

"I'm concerned by one-sided moves by coalition partners," Lieberman said. "We made great efforts to keep the coalition together. Yisrael Beiteinu made a major contribution toward that."

He said Barak's conduct was "a grave mistake." Lieberman added that "I see the dissonance between Migron and Hebron. The absurd thing is, in Migron, despite the settlement having existed for 13 years, residents are being evicted because of property rights. In Hebron, residents are being evicted despite property rights."


_________

4/3/2012 3 pm

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overruled the planned eviction on Tuesday of Jewish settlers from a building in an occupied West Bank city that is flashpoint of tensions with Palestinians.

Some 20 settlers moved into the Hebron building last Thursday at night, seeking to expand a settlement of some 500 families in the heart of the ancient city.

The settlers say they bought the two-storey structure from its Palestinian owner. This is disputed by Palestinian police. Citing the need to maintain calm, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the settlers out by 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Tuesday.

"The prime minister has asked the defense minister to give the settlers in the building time to allow them the possibility of pursuing legal proceedings," an Israeli official said.

The rare veto of Barak, who heads the only centrist party in Netanyahu's religious-nationalist coalition, came a week after Israel's top court ordered the evacuation by Aug. 1 of a West Bank settlement built without state approval, quashing bids by the government to talk its residents into leaving voluntarily.

Though politically strong, 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.

About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas which, along with the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

All Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land are illegal under international law.

A traditional burial site of the biblical patriarchs revered by Jews and Muslims, Hebron is especially fraught.

Zeev Elkin, a senior Likud lawmaker, told Israel's Army Radio the Hebron settlers had bought the disputed building "for a great sum of money, and therefore it is their right to live there."

But Ramadan Awad, chief of Palestinian police in the city, denied the validity of any such deal, saying the building had more than 50 owners. The Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank, outlaws the sale of land to Israelis.

"One of its owners sold his share to a Palestinian from Gaza presently in the West Bank, who was detained and held by the (Palestinian) security forces to investigate whether he sold it to settlers," Awad told Reuters. "Even if he sold that share, it represents only a small part of the whole house."

Asked when the settlers in the disputed Hebron building might now face eviction, a Barak aide declined to provide details, saying there were "operational considerations".