8 settlers detained during outpost evacuation
IDF soldiers forcefully remove rightists from Reches Sela outpost near Bracha settlement after area declared closed military zone; eight detained. Daniella Weiss: We already rebuilt structure razed by security forces
Some 30 Jewish settlers were evacuated on Monday from the illegal outpost of Reches Sela, located outside Nablus in the northern West Bank. Eight of them were arrested in the process.
IDF soldiers who were dispatched to the scene presented the settlers with a closed military zone order, but the settlers refused to evacuate the area and eventually had to be removed by force. Eight settlers were arrested for violating a military order and were transferred to Samaria Sub-District Police custody for further interrogation.
Soldiers leveled a temporary structure set up at the site, but shortly after they left it was rebuilt.
Former Kedumim mayor Daniella Weiss, one of the leaders of the Land of Israel Faithful, said the security forces used violence against the settlers.
"They destroyed the structure, but we already rebuilt it and tomorrow, God-willing, we'll place a Mezuzah," she told Ynet.
On Friday some 30 right-wing activists flocked to a new outpost named Mitzpe Ami, set up near the West Bank settlement of Kedumim just before sunset.
Following a riot which broke out in the area and after most of the activists were evacuated, a Border Guard force remained in the area to guard a small number of activists who decided to spend the night there.
'Back on track'
Last Sunday, the far-right Youth for Israel Movement set up 11 new outposts in the West Bank in what they said was an attempt to mimic "that night in 1946 when the Jewish community established 11 new positions in the Negev ahead of the land's partition."
Rightist organizations distributed pamphlets calling on activists to erect the new outposts while special US Mideast envoy George Mitchell was touring the region.
The pamphlet said activists must act like the pioneers who tried to Judaize certain areas after the UN called to divide the Mandate of Palestine into two provisional states, one Jewish and one Arab. The partition plan was never implemented.
"Only the establishment of settlements will put the State of Israel back on the track of independence and growth, and will create national resilience in the face of international pressure," the pamphlet read.
Last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mitchell discussed the settlement issue, which has strained relations between Israel and the US since the inception of Netanyahu's right-wing government. The US demands that Israel freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank and halt Jewish construction in east Jerusalem as well.
