Israel evacuates small settler community

Israeli police today began removing residents and protesters from nine West Bank settler homes set to be demolished under a Supreme Court ruling.

The homes in the Ofra settlement were found to have been built on private Palestinian land and ordered razed by 5 March.

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Police entered the homes today and removed young protesters one at a time, a reporter said.

Leaders of the Ofra community said they were intent on preventing clashes with security forces such as those that took place during the eviction of the nearby Amona outpost three weeks ago, where youths barricaded themselves in the synagogue and wounded Israeli forces with stones and acid.

Amona residents announced they would begin a hunger strike today until the government keeps its commitment to build them a new settlement.

Around 600,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the Six Day War of 1967.

The international community sees settlements as illegal and a major obstacle to peace, as they are built on land internationally designated as part of a future Palestinian state.

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The Israeli Knesset passed the controversial “Regularisation Bill” which allows for the retrospective legalisation of outposts built on Palestinian land.

The bill has been criticised by human rights groups and legal experts who have said that it violates property rights. The government’s attorney general has stated that the bill was unconstitutional and contradicts Israel’s legal obligations under international law.

Rights groups and the UN have warned that the bill is another big step towards complete annexation of the occupied West Bank and would mark the end of the two-state solution.