Xinhua
January 17, 2013 - 1:00am
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-01/17/c_132110075.htm


 

Israeli security forces completed the evacuation of the Palestinian outpost in the E1 territory early Thursday morning with the removal of 25 tents.

Police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld confirmed to Xinhua that the evacuation took place late Wednesday night and lasted an hour without any unusual incidents or disturbances.

Early Sunday the outpost was evacuated from its inhabitants yet the tents remained standing due to a court injunction.

The eviction was made possible after the Supreme Court on Wednesday canceled a temporary injunction it had issued over the weekend barring Israeli security forces from taking down the 25 tents.

The court accepted the state's claim that the tent-city is a " magnet for disturbances of public order." However, the ruling also stated that the removal of the tents was not an "irreversible step " and it would continue discussion petitions against the removal of the tents. One petition was filed on Tuesday night charging the outpost was erected on private Palestinian lands.

On Friday, about 250 Palestinian activists, part of the group called the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, erected the tents-city called Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun) at the controversial territory as protest of the Israeli government decision to expand settlements there with 3,500 housing units.

The E1 territory connects east Jerusalem with the West Bank. By building Jewish settlements there, the Israeli government is in fact obstructing a possible territorial continuity for a future Palestinian state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an order to evacuate the premises over the weekend, as Israel charged that at least some of the settlements are erected on a military exclusion zone.

The Supreme Court halted the decision to remove the tents after four Bedouin families claimed the land was theirs. The government appealed the decision, saying there's an urgent need and security concerns that demand quick evacuation, fearing a nationalist- motivated uprising among Palestinians.

The State Attorney's Office said that letting the outpost remain could cause unrest and prompt "national and international consequences" and maintained that the court could evacuate the people but leave the tents.

Early Sunday, the activists were evacuated. About 60 of them tried to return to the camp on Tuesday but were pushed back by Israeli border guards.




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