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Israel Restores Order in Hebron ; West Bank Pullout Could Incite Settlers

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By RAVI NESSMAN, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HEBRON, West Bank - Israeli police seized buildings and rooftops in a Jewish settler enclave in Hebron on Monday, restoring order after three days of riots sparked by plans to evict Israeli squatters from an abandoned Palestinian market.

The scuffles could signal the opening salvo in a battle over the West Bank, if Israel follows its pullout from the Gaza Strip over the summer with further withdrawals from territory that has far more biblical resonance.

The army declared the Jewish settlement section of Hebron a closed military area, banning all non-residents - an unprecedented step against Jewish extremists.

Settler leaders and two groups of rabbis who support them demanded that acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert abandon his plan to dismantle the market outpost and other unauthorized settlements across the West Bank slated for destruction in coming weeks.

Olmert stood his ground, saying he ordered security forces to deal sternly with the settlers.

"There will be no forgiveness or compromises with this unacceptable behavior," he said Monday.

The fight over Hebron, where tradition says the biblical Jewish patriarchs are buried, has special resonance for the settlers. Many of the settlers here are religious nationalists, and the city has been the scene of fighting during the five years of Israeli- Palestinian violence.

Hebron is the only West Bank city divided between Palestinian and Israeli zones. Israeli forces control the center of the city, where about 500 settlers live in several compounds. The Israeli- controlled area of the city where the settlers live makes up about 20 percent of the entire city. About 170,000 Palestinians live in Hebron.

Olmert spoke about Hebron after being named acting head of the Kadima Party in place of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remains unconscious after a stroke Jan. 4. Sharon formed Kadima last year after rebellious lawmakers from his Likud Party tried to torpedo his pullout from Gaza and four West Bank settlements. Many Israelis assumed Sharon planned further withdrawals, if his party won March 28 elections as polls indicate.

Hoping to show the government that future withdrawals will not be as painless as the Gaza pullout, hundreds of protesters flocked to Hebron to fight eviction orders given to eight settler families.

The families moved into an empty Palestinian market four years ago after Palestinian gunmen killed a 10-month-old Jewish baby and they ignored an Israeli court order that gave them until Jan. 15 to leave voluntarily. The army said it would remove them within a month.

"It's important to say 'No,'-" said David Wilder, a settler spokesman. "You can't let them chop up your land and give it to your enemy."

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Source: Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

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