Clashes as Israel demolishes West Bank settlement homes

At Beit El – a settlement reputedly built on the site where Jacob dreamt of a ladder to heaven, according to the Book of Genesis – kippa-wearing protesters, many of them children, threw plastic bottles and other objects at armoured police deployed to cordon off the condemned buildings.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was angered by the criticism unleashed by the Jewish Home party against the government on the matter.

“These settlement measures and war crimes are part of a plan by Israeli leaders to impose a “Greater Israel” on historic Palestine and destroy … the chance for peace” in the region, PLO said in a statement hours after the announcement of the decision.

The other announced housing units are throughout Israeli areas in east Jerusalem.

A spokesman for the EU also said the decision called into question Israel s “stated commitment to a negotiated two-state solution in the Middle East peace process”.

The Israeli army claims troopers get migrated into a contested West Lender settlement homes sophisticated ahead of its slated demolition.

“The court’s role is to judge; the government’s role is to build”, he said in a statement.

On Tuesday, violent clashes eruptedbetween Israeli police and hundreds of young settlers who were trying to stop the demolitions.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, a member of the Jewish Home party, said the court’s order to demolish the complex must be followed, but said there was little reason to worry as the buildings would be immediately rebuilt, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The “Dreinoff houses” were built on private Palestinian land appropriated under a security injunction.

The 300 units were originally promised as compensation for the demolition of another housing project in Beit El a year ago.

Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has controlled it ever since.

“You can’t just have the government and ministers petitioning to change the decision of a court, there’s a ruling and that’s the ruling, you can’t play around with it”, he added.

A total of 22 people were arrested in clashes with police late Tuesday night and throughout Wednesday for either throwing stones or attacking police.

The Shin Bet and police said the activists were part of an extremist group of Israeli settler youth seeking to bring about religious “redemption”.

Palestinians collect a fridge from their belongings after their businesses, consisting of a wedding hall and shop, were razed by the Israeli military in the Arab east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina on July 29, 2015.