Posted on 06/30/2002 7:56:04 AM PDT by kattracks
JERUSALEM, June 30 (AFP) - The Israeli army on Sunday started dismantling two unauthorised settlement sites in the southern West Bank, settler sources and army radio said, after Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer pledged to shut down 10 settlement outposts built without government permission.The army moved into the small settlement sites of Beit Hagai et Maale Hever, near the city of Hebron, the sources said.
There were no immediate reports of the troops meeting any opposition in the area that is a bastion of hardcore settlers.
Ben Eliezer on Saturday ordered the dismantlement of 10 outposts built without authorisation from the government, with the order to be carried out by nightfall Sunday, Israeli public radio said.
But addressing journalists as he officially opened a protective fence around Jerusalem at a site near the settlement of Gilo, on the city's southern flank, the Labour party leader was vague on the subject and appeared to retreat from his previous line.
"I think the dismantlement of the 10 settlement sites will take place at the beginning of July, while a dozen other outposts will meet a similar fate by mid-July," he said.
The so-called wildcat settlements are usually no more than a handful of tents or caravans set up by Jewish settlers to stake a claim to land occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
However, their construction requires protection by the Israeli army from Palestinian militants. There has been a growing call that the more isolated and hard to protect sites be abandoned.
The anti-settlement group Peace Now said Sunday that since the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, took power 16 months ago, 44 new settlement sites had been built, and accused the defence ministry of making "spurious" claims about scrapping settlements.
Shaol Yahalom, a deputy from the National Religious Party (NRP), accused Ben Eliezer of using the move to improve his standing in his left-leaning Labour party ahead of the party's annual congress which opens on Monday.
The NRP is the self-styled mouthpiece of some 200,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.
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