The Israeli government forcibly evicted protesters who had erected tents on private land in the E1 area of the west bank. Despite a court injunction putting such action on hold. The E1 area is the area of the west bank occupied by Israel that the Likud government recently announced plans to build settlements. In addition to the illegality of such settlements. such construction would make a geographically continguous Palestinian state vitually impossible.
The Israeli state has swung into action against a group of Palestinian activists who established a tent village on a rocky hillside east of Jerusalem, with hundreds of security officials carrying out an eviction under the orders of the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
According to activists, a large military force surrounded the encampment at around 3am. All protesters were arrested and six were injured, said Abir Kopty.
On Saturday evening, Netanyahu demanded the Israeli supreme court overturn an injunction preventing the removal of the protesters, and ordered the area to be declared a closed military zone.
Around 200 Palestinian activists set up the village, named Bab al-Shams ("gate of the sun") and comprising around 20 tents, early on Friday morning on a highly sensitive swath of land known as E1 which Israel has earmarked for settlement development. The protesters' actions echoed the tactics of radical settlers when establishing outposts in the West Bank.
The tents were erected on privately owned Palestinian land, the protesters said, with the full permission of the landowners. The activists sought legal protection from the supreme court, which granted an injunction against eviction and gave the state of Israel up to six days to respond.
Of course unlike the settlers, this group was on their land. And the contrast in swiftness between the Israeli government response between the two couldn't be more plain.
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And this is another example of non-violent Palestinian resistance. But don't count on knowing that from the North American meda.
Activists brewed sweet tea and coffee on open fires, and volunteers manned a medical centre in one tent. Rubbish was collected by a team organised by a member of the seven-strong "village council".
Mahmoud Zawahra, a protest leader, described the tent village as "constructive resistance".
"We are part of a non-violent resistance movement. For us, this is occupied land so we created a village to stop the Israeli plan to build a settlement here," he said.
Another activist, Samir, who declined to give his full name, said the protest had been organised secretly. "We know the army follows us on Twitter and Facebook, so we made out we were holding a protest somewhere else."
Activists were trained in non-violent resistance techniques, he added
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