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Protestors shouting from within a Hebron apartment during a police evacuation on Tuesday. (Pierre Terdjman / BauBau)
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At least 15 people hurt as police evacuate Hebron market homes
By Amos Harel, Nadav Shragai and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents

At least 15 people were hurt Tuesday morning as security forces evacuated more than 200 protestors and settlers from the wholesale market in the West Bank city of Hebron.

According to police, 11 policeman and 4 activists were wounded. Three of the policemen were taken to hospital for treatment. Hebron Jewish community leaders said, however, that 26 activists were treated for injuries. Police took four protestors into custody.

Hundreds of right-wing activists had barricaded themselves in three apartments in the market, and had encircled the market with barbed wire, oil drums, and burning tires. Protestors had also locked and welded shut the doors to the apartments.

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Dozens of teenagers, some of them wearing masks, took to the roofs of the market, from where they threw rocks, eggs, and light bulbs at security forces. Large numbers of police ascended the roofs, where they attempted to stop the stone-throwers.

Orit Struk, one of the leaders of Hebron's Jewish community, asked the activists to halt the clashes with security forces, following which the protestors stopped throwing stones.

Two of the apartments housed the Yahalom and Bar-Kochba families, while the third was occupied by protestors overnight Tuesday.

Serious damage was caused to the apartments during the evacuation, which were flooded with oil, petrol and flour used by protesters against the security forces.

The evacuating forces discovered an improvised bunker in the third apartment, where three settlers had barricaded themselves inside with flammable oxygen tanks. Concrete blockades placed in the apartment also made it difficult to reach the second floor. IDF Engineering Corps troops were brought in to break through the bunker.

Nadia Matar, the head of right-wing group 'Women in Green,' renowned for her acts in opposition to Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, was among the protestors removed by police from one of the apartments

The IDF hired a moving company, and soldiers loaded the evacuated families' possessions onto the trucks. In addition, police removed windows and doorposts from the apartments, in order to prevent a possible attempt by settlers to return in the future.

Police also removed doorposts and knocked down plaster walls in other apartments in the wholesale market, which housed Jewish families in the past, in order to prevent the settlers from returning.

The Hebron Jewish committee reiterated Tuesday that it intends to return Jewish settlers to the market, when possible.

Leaders of the Hebron Jewish community said Monday that while they would struggle resolutely against the evacuation, they would not initiate violence. Security forces did not officially negotiate with the settlers ahead of the evacuation, but indirect efforts were issued in a bid to keep it non-violent.

"Today we are preparing for a struggle," said Gershon Bar-Kochba, one of the settlers living in the marketplace, prior to the evacuation. "We won't leave the marketplace voluntarily. We've already been here. The struggle will be resolute, but non-violent. It will be the police forces, not the residents, who determine the level of violence. We do not plan to use violence."

Some 3,000 security personnel from the IDF, police force and Border Police participated in the evacuation. Security forces began deploying to the Hebron area Monday night to prepare for the mission. The police force was responsible for the evacuation itself, the Border Police dealt with any disturbances, and the IDF was in charge of securing the outer security ring, meant to keep protesters away from the Hebron area.

12 infantry soldiers refuse orders to assist evacuation
Meanwhile, 12 Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the Duchifat Battalion refused orders Monday to take part in the evacuation, in the most wide-scale military refusal since the disengagement from Gaza two years ago. They were brought before a disciplinary hearing last night, on the orders of GOC Central Command Gadi Shamni.

Shamni also decided the soldiers will no longer be allowed to serve in combat units."This is a phenomenon that endangers the basis on which the IDF operates, as an army of the people in a democratic country, and its obligation to carry out the tasks assigned to it," Shamni said.

The refusal of soldiers to participate in Tuesday's evacuation of Jewish settlers from Hebron's market drew mixed reactions Monday, with MKs on the right expressing their support.

MKs Aryeh Eldad and Zvi Hendel (National Union, National Religious Party) congratulated the soldiers for "refusing to be the executioners of a blatantly immoral decision."

The two MKs also said that the decision was "politically motivated, and its aim is to evict Jews from Jewish property in Hebron."
"This is clearly an illegal order," Hendel said. "There is a limit to the extent to which the Jews can be abused, only because the extreme left has taken over the Supreme Court. The IDF needs to prepare for war and not deal with political policing actions."

MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) assailed Eldad. "This is a dangerous crossing of lines," he said. "Refusing [to serve] will lift the barrier before a torrent of political refusals to serve, which will disintegrate the IDF."
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