JERUSALEM — Israeli prosecutors on Sunday charged five radical Jewish settlers with tracking troop movements in the West Bank and organizing a raid on an Israeli Army base there last month.
The indictment was the first sign of a promised crackdown on settlers whose increasingly provocative actions have been described by some Israeli officials as homegrown terrorism.
In recent years, small groups of radical settlers have pursued a policy known as “price tag,” attacking Palestinian civilians and vandalizing property as well as distracting Israeli security forces and damaging military equipment. The point is to either thwart or retaliate for any attempt by the Israeli Army or the police to dismantle property in illegally built outposts scheduled to be removed by the government.
Israeli leaders have expressed growing alarm at the actions by the settlers, including arson attacks against several mosques. But the December attack on the army base shocked much of country and drew a strong condemnation from leaders of the settler establishment, not least because the Israeli Army is responsible for protecting the settlements in the West Bank.
According to the indictment, the military was planning to dismantle an illegal outpost in the northern West Bank called Mitzpe Yitzhar on the night of Dec. 12. But the prosecutors said that the evacuation was thwarted by the five suspects who organized the raid on the army base, during which dozens of settlers broke in, rioted, blocked the entrance with rocks and burning tires, and damaged military vehicles.
A deputy brigade commander was injured when he was struck on the forehead. The same night, extremists stopped a car driven by a local Israeli commander and threw a brick at him. The forces that had been deployed to dismantle the outpost ended up being diverted to handle the disturbances.
Two nights later, Israeli forces removed two structures at the outpost. The following morning, a mosque in a village outside the West Bank city of Ramallah was defaced and set on fire. Hebrew graffiti said “war,” “price tag” and “regards from Mitzpe Yitzhar.”
The violence prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce new measures to curb the radicals.
He said that Israeli extremists would be treated the same way that suspected Palestinian militants were: detained for long periods without charge and tried in military courts.
But it was the civil Jerusalem District Court that indicted the five on Sunday. The indictment said that all were residents of Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for the West Bank.
They were charged with, among other things, operating a hot line to collect reports on troop and police movements in the West Bank, distributing the information and calling on supporters to be at specific locations to thwart attempts by Israeli forces to evacuate outposts.
Some reports of troop movements were based on information received from soldiers on active duty, according to the charges. The suspects were also charged with illegally holding intelligence material like classified aerial photographs and maps of areas of the West Bank.
One of the five, Akiva HaCohen, has long been considered an architect of the “price tag” doctrine. He and three others among the five have been served administrative orders in the past barring them from the West Bank for certain periods.
Adi Kedar, a lawyer from Honenu, a legal aid organization for Israeli nationalists who is representing three of the five, said that there was no evidence that any of them were trying to harm soldiers and called for their release.
Also on Sunday, Israeli military police officers caught a Palestinian man trying to cross from the West Bank into Israel with 11 pipe bombs, a pistol and bullets.
The Israeli military said that the weapons were found during a routine check at the Salem checkpoint in the north, and that the man was detained.
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