D
Deleted_171835
Guest
OP
The Israeli state has swung into action against a group of Palestinian activists who established a tent village on a rocky hillside east of Jerusalem, with hundreds of security officials carrying out an eviction under the orders of the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
According to activists, a large military force surrounded the encampment at around 3am. All protesters were arrested and six were injured, said Abir Kopty.
On Saturday evening, Netanyahu demanded the Israeli supreme court overturn an injunction preventing the removal of the protesters, and ordered the area to be declared a closed military zone.
Around 200 Palestinian activists set up the village, named Bab al-Shams ("gate of the sun") and comprising around 20 tents, early on Friday morning on a highly sensitive swath of land known as E1 which Israel has earmarked for settlement development. The protesters' actions echoed the tactics of radical settlers when establishing outposts in the West Bank.
The tents were erected on privately owned Palestinian land, the protesters said, with the full permission of the landowners. The activists sought legal protection from the supreme court, which granted an injunction against eviction and gave the state of Israel up to six days to respond.
Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti, who was among those arrested, said the eviction was "proof that the Israeli government operates an apartheid system. Firstly it decided that supreme court decisions do not apply to Palestinians. And secondly, there are more than 120 Israeli outposts in the West Bank that are illegal even under Israeli law. Not only are they still there, but they are expanding and they are being legalised one after another. We were there for less than 48 hours, and the state used violent force against a non-violent peaceful resistance movement."
Asked why the protesters were removed, Netanyahu said: "They have no reason to be there. I asked immediately to close the area so people would not gather there needlessly and generate friction and disrupt public order."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/13/isarel-evicts-e1-palestinian-peace-camp
smh