Israel demolishes two settlement outposts in southern West Bank

Jerusalem - Israel police and paramilitary police demolished two unauthorized settlement outposts in the southern West Bank early Wednesday morning, but settlers vowed to rebuild them. When the dismantling forces arrived at an outpost outside the settlement town of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron, in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday, they found only one large tent filled with equipment. According to Israel Army Radio, the outpost had been dismantled in the past, but rebuilt. At the second outpost, also outside Kiryat Arba, police found five youths who did not resist when they were taken away and their two make shift huts and equipment were confiscated. One of the outposts' founders, Tzur Natan, told Army Radio that settlers 'will continue, continue to settle' the occupied West Bank and set up more outposts. 'At these very moments, a new building is being built,' he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday said they would remove the outposts, which settlers had built without government sanction. Some 100 outposts, set up independently by Jewish settlers without formal government approval, are scattered throughout the West Bank. Of those, Barak said, 22 would be removed, if not through agreement with settler leaders then by force. Often consisting of little more than a few makeshift shelters, the unauthorized outposts are located next to the 121 'formal' Israeli settlements in the territory. All are considered illegal under international law. Israel considers the formal settlements legal, but not the outposts. The 2003 'road map' authored by the quartet of Middle East peace sponsors - the United States, Europe, United Nations and Russia - calls on Israel to uproot all outposts erected since March 2001 and to freeze all construction in the other settlements. Previous attempts to evacuate outposts have not always gone smoothly and in some cases have been met with violence on the part of settlers. Settlers also often return to rebuild after removal forces have left.