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Ammar Awad/Reuters

Israeli Soldiers Attack, Evict, Bab Al-Shams, Arrest Dozens

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

. . . Israeli soldiers and policemen attacked, on Saturday at dawn, the Bab Al-Shams Palestinian village (outpost), installed east of in occupied East Jerusalem, and forcibly removed dozens of activists loading them into buses.

The soldiers dragged several activists into the ground, attacked reporters and journalist and declared the area as a closed military zone, several injuries were reported.

The Israeli decision to evacuate the village came, on Saturday, through a direct order issued by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his right-wing fundamentalist cabinet.

Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that by midnight Saturday, the order was signed by Osnat Mandel, head of the Israeli High Court division of the Justice Ministry, under the claimed that “the people and the tends must be removed due to security considerations”.

The Israeli Police said that the eviction order, issued by the court, prohibits the army from removing the tents, but orders the removal of the people staying there.

Also, the so-called Israeli Civil Administration Office, run by the occupation in the West bank, claimed that the Palestinian tent village “was installed on state land”.

But four Bedouin families living in the area confirmed that they own the land, and even showed deeds proving ownership.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, who was also at the Palestinian village, stated that hundreds of Israeli soldiers invaded the village after surrounding it, and attacked the nonviolent activists camped there, and started kidnapping them.

The soldiers violently attacked the residents, including journalists, elderly and women, and dragged several resident onto the ground.

The soldiers repeatedly interrupted the work of local reporters, flashing their lights onto the camera, and pushing the reporters away, and dragged dozens of activists into buses that were brought by the army to the area.

On Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered the army to remove the Palestinians and their supporters from the Palestinian outpost that was installed on privately-owned Palestinian lands to send a message to Israel and the entire world that this land is the land of Palestine, and the Palestinian people have the right to inhibit it.

The army installed dozens of roadblocks around the area to prevent Palestinian traffic and surrounded the “outpost” where around 200 activists installed around 20 tents declaring the Bab Al-Shams Palestinian village, in the area were Israeli illegally declared it intends to build thousands of homes for Jewish settlers, east of occupied east Jerusalem.

The Israeli decision to build the illegal settlements in the occupied state of Palestine came after the Palestinians managed to obtain an observer state status at the UN – General Assembly.

The Israeli decision was met with international condemnation, but the settler-led government of Benjamin Netanyahu, approved the illegal settlement project.

The so-called E1 settlement project aims at linking the Maale Adumim illegal settlement, where 35000 reside, with occupied East Jerusalem, thus illegally confiscating Palestinian lands and blocking geographical continuity in the occupied West Bank.

This illegal Israeli project would divide the West Bank into two parts, and would completely isolate it from occupied East Jerusalem, an issue that would prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Abdullah Abu Rahma, a Palestinian nonviolent activist from the West Bank village on Bil’in, who was also detained when the army attacked and evicted Bab Al-Shams, stated that this village is on private Palestinian land, and that the Palestinians are not invading anybody’s property, as they are establishing a village in the land of Palestine.

“We tied our hands, chained ourselves with each other to prevent the soldiers from removing us”, Abu Rahma said, “The Soldiers violently attacked us, beat us, and injured at least 10”

He added that there will be more nonviolent activities, and that the struggle for Bab Al-Shams, the nonviolent struggle for the liberation of Palestine will continue as the Palestinians are practicing their internationally-guaranteed right.

It is worth mentioning that the Palestine TV was live streaming from Bab Al-Shams, and the army repeatedly tried to interrupt the stream, pushing the reporters, and using large flashlight, pointing them against the camera to disrupt the images.

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E1, West Bank (Reuters) -- Israeli security forces evacuated over 100 Palestinians early on Sunday from an outpost of tents pitched in an area of the occupied West Bank that Israel has earmarked for a new settlement.

Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Palestinian outpost, built in the geographically sensitive area known as E1, could remain for six days while the issue of the removal of the tents was being discussed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the meantime, ordered those gathered there to be evacuated. A police spokesman said the court allowed for the removal of the protesters even if the tents, for now, will stay.

Netanyahu's pledge last November to build settlements on E1 caused an outcry, with European diplomats warning it could kill off any hope of creating a contiguous Palestinian state.

The prime minister's office said in a statement on Saturday that the government was petitioning the court to retract its ruling on the outpost, and had instructed security forces to block off roads leading to the rocky desert terrain.

Hours later, at 2.30 a.m. Israeli police and border guard officers entered the compound and told a crowd of around 100 to leave the 20 large, steel-framed tents that were erected a day earlier in an effort to preserve the land for a future Palestinian state.

Those protesters who refused to leave were carried down the hill by Israeli officers, but there was no violence.

"Everyone was evacuated carefully and swiftly, without any injuries to officers or protesters," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

Palestinian National initiative MP Mustafa Barghouti and eight other community activists were detained at the scene, witnesses said. Rosenfeld said they had all been released.

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Israelis Evict Palestinians From a Site for Housing

By ISABEL KERSHNER for the New York Times

JERUSALEM — Israeli security forces evicted scores of Palestinian activists before dawn on Sunday from a tent encampment they had set up set up two days earlier in a strategic piece of Israeli-occupied West Bank territory known as E1, east of Jerusalem, where Israel says it plans to build settler homes.

A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said that police officers had removed the activists one by one, without any use of force, aside from some pushing and shoving, and that the police operation was over within an hour. But a spokeswoman for the protesters, Abir Kopty, said that six Palestinians had sought hospital treatment for injuries, some caused by punches to the face.

The encampment, which the protesters called the village of Bab al-Shams (Arabic for “Gate of the Sun”), represented a new kind of action by Palestinian grass-roots activists involved in what they describe as the nonviolent popular struggle against the Israeli occupation.

Employing a tactic more commonly used by Jewish settlers who establish wildcat outposts in the West Bank, the protesters had pitched their tents on Friday on what they said was privately owned land, and with the permission of the Palestinian landowners. They were immediately served eviction notices by the Israeli military authorities, but their lawyers had obtained a temporary injunction against their removal from the High Court of Justice until the state detailed the grounds for such a move.

But on Saturday evening, with the end of the Sabbath, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying he had ordered security forces to evacuate “forthwith” the Palestinians who had gathered in the area between Jerusalem and the large urban settlement of Maale Adumim.

The state responded to the High Court of Justice on Saturday night, arguing that the gathering would become a focus of protest that could lead to rioting, and asserting that most of the tents had been pitched on territory that Israel had declared state land. The court overturned the injunction, allowing the people to be removed from the site. Discussions about the fate of the tents were to continue on Sunday.

The Israeli authorities declared the area a closed military zone on Saturday evening and began building up security forces around the site.

The Palestinians claim E1, just east of Jerusalem, as part of a future state. The protest came six weeks after Israel announced that it was moving forward with plans for thousands of settlement homes in E1, stirring international outrage. Israel announced its intention as a countermeasure after the United Nations General Assembly voted in November to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to that of a nonmember observer state.

Israel wants East Jerusalem, which it has annexed, and Maale Adumim, which lies beyond E1, to be contiguous and says that the future of the West Bank has to be settled in negotiations. In the meantime, critics say, Israel continues to establish facts on the ground — a policy that the Palestinian protesters sought to emulate.

Ms. Kopty, the spokeswoman for the protesters, said about 100 Palestinians were removed from the site and taken to the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“The amount of support we got from Palestinians and across the world was heartwarming,” she said, speaking by telephone from the hospital in Ramallah where she was accompanying those who had been injured. “We hope this action will inspire Palestinians to do more, to break through the apathy and to take the popular struggle to the next level.”

And in a statement, leaders of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, a grass-roots group, said, “Even though we were evicted, our strength was apparent since the police needed hundreds and hundreds of special unit police officers” to remove the protesters.

Israeli plans to build in E1 have been vehemently opposed by many countries, including the United States, which say that construction there would partially separate the northern and southern West Bank, harming the prospects of a viable contiguous Palestinian state in that territory.