RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli security forces forcibly evicted hundreds of settlers and extreme right-wing activists from the former settlement of Homesh, near West Bank city Jenin, yesterday after the activists managed to make their way into the site Sunday night against army orders.
During the evacuation, police arrested a number of activists and dismantled the makeshift structures they had erected at the site, including the beginnings of a synagogue. They also erected a wooden tower on a hill north of the settlement to mark two years since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in the 2005 disengagement.
Homesh was one of four northern West Bank settlements that were also evacuated during the disengagement. Right-wing activists have held four previous marches to the ruins of Homesh seeking to resettle the area. Israeli officials expressed anger over the incident, complaining that instead of carrying out training and operational activities, they were forced to “chase the activists.”
According to the Israeli settlers, the police brutalized women during the evacuations. They reported that their cameras had been confiscated and their memory cards destroyed. On Sunday evening, after police forces removed the protesters from the area surrounding the settlement, the activists apparently hid in wooded areas and waited for the authorities to leave.
They then entered the site, each carrying a brick, and began rebuilding a synagogue that had been demolished during the disengagement.
An additional 150 activists ran to nearby hilltops; about 70 fled to the nearby village of Burqah, where a confrontation broke out between them and local Palestinian villagers. The residents Burqah responded to the settlers’ attack by hurling rocks back at them, as large Israeli police and army forces arrived to calm the situation.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, a Hamas security force said yesterday the brother and cousin of three sisters who were stabbed to death last weekend were suspects of what was likely to have been an “honor killing” and ordered the men jailed. Witnesses said unidentified men dumped the bodies of the women in a pre-dug grave in a cemetery late on Saturday and informed Hamas’ Executive Force. Medics said the sisters had multiple stab wounds.
The deaths of the women, who were aged 16 to 22, were the first such killings in Gaza since Hamas seized the area in June after routing loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas. The deaths pose a challenge to the Islamist group, which many credit with bringing a sense of security to Gaza, whose 1.5 million population suffers severe economic hardships.
“There is a law and no one should take the law into his hands,” said Executive Force spokesman Islam Shahwan. “The defendants will be jailed and brought to justice.” Shahwan said a preliminary inquiry showed the brother and cousin to be suspects in the killing of the sisters and that their motive was likely a desire to protect family honor.
“Honor killings” are usually carried out to punish women suspecting of committing acts seen as dishonorable to the family, such as being the victim of a rape or sex crime, refusing an arranged marriage or cheating on a husband. Such killings are occasionally seen in the Arab and Muslim world.
— With additional input from agencies
