Mideast - AFP
Sharon faces twin challenge as West Bank settlers dig in heels
Date: Thu, Aug 26, 2004
GIVAT ASSAF SETTLEMENT OUTPOST, West Bank (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) was facing a twin challenge from settlers as hardliners blocked the dismantling of a Jewish outpost and West Bank residents planned a series of legal challenges to the route of the separation barrier.
While Sharon has promised the Americans he would get rid of the unauthorised settlement outposts, his plans were again thwarted by around 1,000 radical settlers who stopped a late-night army operation from removing any of the 13 trailers near the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Four people were arrested, one of whom was suspected of attacking police.
Around 20 religious students were still guarding the outpost on Thursday morning, vowing to stand fast against any further attempt by the army to remove the makeshift dwellings.
The US government is becoming increasingly frustrated over Israel's failure to dismantle more than a handful of the outposts as agreed to by Sharon when the roadmap peace plan was endorsed last year.
While Washington has tacitly backtracked on its demand that Israel freeze construction in government-authorized settlements, it is still insisting the outposts be demolished.
The outposts, which watchdogs say number around 100, are generally set up as makeshift settlements with caravans but are often later "legalized" by the authorities.
The international community considers all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories illegal.
A further headache emerged Thursday when settlers announced plans to file a raft of legal challenges to the route of Israel's separation barrier being built in the West Bank.
Residents of settlements which look set to remain east of the barrier are preparing several petitions arguing that planners have no right to separate them from their land, echoing a June ruling that Palestinians should not be cut off from their fields.
On the ground, an unarmed and apparently mentally handicapped Palestinian was shot and wounded by Jewish settlers as he tried to enter a northern West Bank settlement Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.
The man, who was shot in the leg as he tried to climb the fence surrounding the Elon Moreh settlement, just north-east of Nablus, Israeli military sources said.
Palestinian medical sources identified said the 30-year-old man was a mentally-handicapped resident of Beita village, five kilometres (three miles) south of Nablus.
In a separate incident, another 15 Palestinians were injured in Nablus during clashes between Israeli soldiers and stone-throwers, they said.
Meanwhile in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, Palestinian sources said the Israeli army demolished 13 houses. Israeli military sources, however, claimed only two were destroyed.
Israel also said it closed down the checkpoints along the trans-Gaza highway and the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after specific warnings about attacks.
And a spokesman for the Swedish foreign ministry said Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds would meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) at his West Bank headquarters next month.
Freivalds is scheduled to meet with Arafat, Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei and her Palestinian counterpart Nabil Shaath, and is also expected to visit the controversial Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank, her spokesman said.
SOURCE
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