tagged w/ Hebron
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Today Israeli soldiers attempted their first major West Bank evacuation since 2006. How’d that go? 250 settlers barricaded themselves inside the house they were trying to vacate, hurling rocks, eggs, and chemicals at the soldiers. Later, dozens of masked settlers surrounded the home of a Palestinian family in Hebron, throwing stones and setting its laundry on fire. The IDF had to declare the whole of Hebron a closed military zone, as to prevent the entry of more settlers, and used stun grenades and tear gas to combat the settlers. One police officer was wounded after settlers threw acid in his face. Later in the day, there were reports of Palestinians firing guns at the settlers.Today Israeli soldiers attempted their first major West Bank evacuation since 2006.... more
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From the inside, it could at first sight be a squat anywhere in the developed world. The bare concrete floors, the nylon doors, the shafts of sunlight peeping between the roof's breeze-blocks indicating where the winter rain will come in and the electric generator show the occupants have had to improvise. The brightly coloured letters of the alphabet pinned to the unpainted wall of one family apartment testify to the presence of infants.
But even if the letters were not Hebrew and the nearest neighbours were not Arab, you would quickly realise that this was different. One wing is for the teenage boys, many with knitted kippas characteristic of the militant "hilltop" Jewish settler youth, the other for the girls, many of whom are out gathering rocks that could soon be needed to repel invaders, most likely Israeli police and military. A portrait hanging in the boys' corridor is of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, the extreme right-winger with a criminal record assassinated in New York two years after he was banned from Israeli politics for inciting anti-Arab racism.
This is Beit Ha Shalom, or the "House of Peace" as the Hebron settlers have named it, apparently without irony. This ramshackle house is the focus of what could become the highest-profile power struggle yet between the Israeli state and settler militancy in the occupied West Bank.From the inside, it could at first sight be a squat anywhere in the developed world.... more
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