Hundreds of Israeli police armed with batons on Wednesday cleared some 500 right-wing Jewish settlers from an abandoned West Bank settlement they had been occupying under army protection.
Helmeted police had to drag out some of the settlers, mostly youths and some with small children. The settlers this week had moved into the ruins of the Homesh homestead, cleared as part of Israel's so-called disengagement plan in 2005.
"We will be back!" shouted some of the settlers, who passively resisted the police officers. Some of the settlers joined hands, others lay on the ground, while others tried to argue with the officers who carried the radicals to waiting police buses.
"Around 500 people were evacuated including women and children without anyone arrested," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP. "Police continue to be on the site and are searching in and around Homesh to make sure the area is clear of the individuals who have been there for 48 hours," he said, adding that there were no reports of injuries.
The settlers marched on the hilltop settlement under army protection on Monday vowing to reoccupy Homesh and rebuild homes razed by Israeli troops a year and a half ago. They spent two nights at the site, even though authorities originally said they would not be allowed to remain past nightfall on Monday.
Israeli peace groups have blasted the army for caving into right-wing threats and allowing the march on the evacuated settlement. Then prime minister Ariel Sharon evacuated Homesh and three other West Bank settlements as part of the now-defunct plan for a partial withdrawal from the territory Israel has occupied since 1967.
The West Bank settlements were cleared the same year Israel also evacuated 21 settlements and all army outposts from the Gaza Strip after a 38-year occupation.
Homesh, which was established as a military outpost in 1978, was turned over to settlers in 1980. Many of its 70 families were pious and militant zealots who believed they were doing God's work by resettling their biblical homeland of Samaria.
Following last summer's Lebanon war, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shelved an election pledge to follow through on his predecessor's plans to redraw Israel's borders by withdrawing from most of the West Bank and annexing the largest settlement blocs. Now Olmert's popularity is at an all-time low and settlers are flexing their muscles up and down the West Bank.
Last week, 200 settlers occupied a house near the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron that they claimed to have bought from a Palestinian for 700,000 dollars. A local Palestinian said he has owned the house for 15 years and has not sold it.