_a.jpg "Photo: Aya Ben Amos")
Hundreds of Palestinians loot Homesh
Palestinian villagers infiltrate evacuated West Bank settlement; no troops currently deployed there
A Palestinian villager told Ynet only hundreds, as opposed to thousands, of Palestinians entered the evacuated communities because they are not “liberated areas” as was the case in the Gaza Strip.
“If the residents were certain the Israeli army would not appear suddenly and start to disperse them, many more people would have arrived,” he said. “The fear that soldiers may raid the settlement kept many from arriving.”
Scenes of looting and destruction in Homesh (Photo: AFP)
The Palestinian said PA security forces are not operating in the area so villagers are able to go on with the looting uninterrupted.
Notably, the area where the settlement of Homesh was located, in the northern West Bank, is still under IDF control. Troops are still deployed in the area but no forces were specifically designated to guard Homesh, as there are no longer any residents left there.
An IDF source told Ynet that the army has scaled back its operations in the area, with forces patrolling the area.
Sa-Nur, another West Bank settlement recently evacuated, is permanently guarded by soldiers, who are preventing all attempts by Palestinian residents to enter the area.
Knesset Member Eliezer Sandberg (Shinui) has called on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "deal with the Palestinians in Homesh with the same determination with which he dealt with the evacuated settlers."
