Subscribe to Print Edition | Sun., December 07, 2008 Kislev 10, 5769 | | Israel Time: 12:34 (EST+7)
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Last update - 07:29 05/12/2008
Element of surprise leaves Hebron settlers with little time to resist IDF evacuation
By Nadav Shragai
Tags: hebron house evacuation 

At 2:30 P.M., security forces burst through the doors of the House of Contention, firing stun grenades and tear gas. The element of surprise was perfect: In the living quarters, mothers prepared lunch for their children. In Rabbi Uzi Sharbav's apartment, settlers involved in the "crusade" were casually moving about before a work meeting.

They discussed their continued course of action in resisting the evacuation and possible solutions raised in a meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his associates the previous night. Within a matter of minutes, the calm was interrupted by children screaming, "evacuation, evacuation."

Nadia Matar rose from her chair, but before she managed to reach the door, was kicked down by members of the police special forces unit, Yasam. In the span of a few minutes, the heads of the settlers' "battle headquarters" had been ushered out of Sharbav's apartment, one by one.
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The roof was conquered within minutes. The 120 police officers climbed up the staircase, two stories above. The roof, which was considered especially dangerous to evacuate, was empty and taken without resistance. The resistance displayed by the some 200 youths and families in the building was altogether faint - at times nonexistent. A group of young girls from the Ma'aleh Levona religious seminary decided to leave the premises with no opposition out of "considerations of modesty," thus allowing the male police officers to evacuate them.

The evacuation of the families also ended quickly. The Shuva-El family, one of the families evicted from the Hebron wholesale market one year ago, also decided not to resist. The father took his three infant children into his arms and left. His wife, Aderet, followed with their 1-year-old baby, Shiloh, in her arms.

Resistance was slightly fiercer inside the synagogue, where some 100 youths had congregated. During the police entry into the home, they were busying studying Gamara. Then they were dragged outside, one after another, contorting their bodies, stubbornly clinging to whatever object they could grab along the way. Friends who witnessed the scene took prayer books into their hands and read from them, repeating the line: "The name is God, the name is God." Outside, some youths hurled epithets at the police officers, including: "Nazis," "wicked ones," and "burn in hell."

Shosh Shiloh, Daniella Weiss' secretary, picked up a megaphone and repeatedly exhorted the evacuation forces to take care not to injure children. Weiss, who tried to resist the evacuation, and who was marked by the police as "an inciter and a provocateur," was immediately arrested when the operation commenced.

Matar, the leader of Women in Green, put up the most stubborn resistance, prompting officers to employ a considerable amount of force against her. She suffered injuries to her back and neck and was subsequently taken to hospital, but not before she barked at the soldiers: "If you would have acted with such efficiency to free Shalit, he would have been home long ago."

Police officers on the roof discovered a sizable cache of large stones, some of which included the shattered parts of tombstones taken from the nearby Muslim cemetery, a Star of David spray-painted on it. Police also uncovered the bottles and tires which the youths in the building had planned to burn once the evacuation began; the potatoes in which long nails were inserted; light bulbs with paint inside, which police say included acid which the settlers planned to use against the evacuating forces. The settlers denied this.

By 3:30 P.M., the evacuation was complete and the building was empty. After the pullout, hundreds of youths from Kiryat Arba made their way to the wadi separating the town from the House of Contention, where they set fire to fields and yards belonging to Palestinian homes. As darkness fell, the wadi looked like the 33rd day of Omer (Lag B'Omer) - fires and more fires, with heavy black smoke emanating from them. Police officers and soldiers pursued these youths, who were not deterred and continued with their "handiwork": shattering windows of homes, setting fire to laundry, vandalizing Palestinian cars and setting alight orchards and flora.

The most violent incident took place on the outskirts of the town, when one of the right-wing activists pulled out a pistol and shot a Palestinian with whom he was arguing.

The Palestinians at the scene ganged up on the shooter and began to beat him, nearly carrying out a lynch. The shooter's friends fired shots in the air and managed to extricate him from the mob. Three Palestinians were injured in the incident.
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  1.   The violence of the state will cause only more popular violence. 08:45  |  Jean Van Daem 05/12/08
  2.   Apartheid laws 08:51  |  Natallie Durson 05/12/08
  3.   these people are nothing but a drain on society -they don`t work 10:12  |  don 05/12/08
  4.   Digusting Acts of Human Rights Violation 10:21  |  Baruch Gold 05/12/08
  5.   Yassam "Conquering Heroes" could not beat Hezbollah 11:15  |  Harold 05/12/08
  6.   For one moment, "Baruch Gold" # 4 13:55  |  Clickfool 05/12/08
  7.   Why was Matar kicked down rather than using usual arrest methods? 15:19  |  M 05/12/08
  8.   mob v. group 17:57  |  Maslama 05/12/08
  9.   More outrageous lies from the propagandist Jean van Daem # 1 21:04  |  Clickfool 05/12/08
  10.   #6, M: can`t you read? The door was kicked down! 21:29  |  Silvienne 05/12/08
  11.   #4, Baruch Gold, who should be there in person... 21:31  |  Silvienne 05/12/08
  12.   I beg to differ 23:02  |  Daphne White 05/12/08
  13.   House of Contention? 23:44  |  Abbushuki 05/12/08
  14.   Children should be taken away from parents who brought them 23:50  |  Pablo B 05/12/08
  15.   #5, Harold, ever heard of equality?? 00:54  |  Silvienne 06/12/08
  16.   no equality, no justice 02:52  |  molly furie 06/12/08
  17.   Spoilt Child 14:56  |  Brazims 06/12/08
  18.   It is only a small effort 11:48  |  John 07/12/08
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