Young protesters hurled cinder blocks, large stones and buckets of paint at advancing security forces at the Amona outpost in the West Bank Wednesday as large forces of troops moved in to evacuate thousands of demonstrators and demolish nine houses.
The police and soldiers accompanying large bulldozers advanced on the houses minutes after the High Court Wednesday approved the immediate evacuation of the illegal outpost. At least 15 protesters and seven members of the security forces sustained injuries in the turmoil.
Youths threw rocks at the horses carrying mounted police, who used batons to strike the protesters. Other officers tried to break open the windows of the houses, whose opemings were bricked in.
As the security forces approached the houses, a number of people were evacuated from the site on stretchers, one of them far-right MK Aryeh Eldad, whose arm was injured.
‘They are relating to human beings here like they wouldn't relate to Arabs,’ Eldad told Army Radio while undergoing treatment in an IDF field first aid station. ‘It makes no difference if they are members of Knesset or not. They cut open [MK] Effie Eitan's head.’
Earlier in the day, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein issued a temporary injunction delaying the planned evacuation. Rubinstein cast a dissenting ‘no’ vote in the 2-1 High Court decision to give the go-ahead to evacuation forces. The demolitions were ordered after the High Court Sunday rejected a petition by Amona residents against the demolition.
Before dawn Wednesday, thousands of soldiers and police officers massed around the hilltop where the outpost sits, and scattered clashes broke out between security forces and young protesters.
Settlers smeared tar and oil on the road leading to the outpost as thousands of settler youths hurled rocks at police officers. Youths on the rooftops of the homes slated for demolition stockpiled stones, glass
bottles, buckets of cooking oil and paint.
‘We are expecting a high level of violence,’ said Gidon Mor, a police commander at the scene, who was hit in the face by a rock thrown by protesters.
Seven members of the security forces were injured in the clashes, some by bottles and rocks thrown at them. Three of the injured were evacuated to hospitals for treatment. Four young protesters were arrested.
According to Army Radio figures, 3,000 protesters were arrayed in an around the site, facing 2,000 soldiers and 3,100 police, including mounted officers, riot police, and five water cannon trucks.
One bulldozer has entered the area of the outpost, and two others are waiting outside, Israel Radio reported.
A deal presented to the court would have required the settlers to destroy the nine outpost houses themselves, in exchange for the Defense Ministry's assurance that it will allow them to establish permanent structures in another area of Amona, with legal permission.
Ze'ev Hever, the leader of the West Bank settlement of Amana, and attorney Dudu Rotem presented the High Court with the compromise deal early Wednesday , which Hever said was acceptable to the settlers as well as to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Hundreds of settlers blocked the main bypass road near Ramallah just after midnight Wednesday in an effort to halt police convoys en route to Amona.
Military sources told Haaretz that the evacuation of Amona is expected to cost over NIS 5 million.
A Palestinian man was beaten and several cars were trashed by settlers near the village of Za'atra, not far from the settlement of Tapuah.
Protesters also slashed tires and broke windows of vehicles transporting TV crews which came to cover the impending evacuation.
In a separate incident, right-wing activists entered the village of Ein Yabrud and threw stones at Palestinian cars.
Some 100 settlers also blocked the road south of the Hawara roadblock near the town of Nablus. They also punctured the tires and broke the mirror of an Israel Defense Forces patrol jeep.
The overall military commander of the West Bank has voiced concern that violence during the evacuation of Amona could exceed that faced by evacuation forces during last summer's volatile disengagement from the Gaza Strip.