NETIV HAAVOT, Palestinian Territories: Jewish settlers scuffled with Israeli police in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the demolition of a building at a rogue settlement outpost.
AFP journalists said hundreds of young settlers at Netiv Haavot, in the Etzion settlement block, barricaded themselves in a carpentry workshop and resisted orders to leave peacefully.
They set fire to vehicle tires festooned with barbed wire to try to block access to the building but riot police and border police broke through and carried the protesters away.
“Security forces completed the demolition of the illegal structure,” an army statement said. There were no reports of arrests or injuries.
Several homes at the outpost, a satellite of Elazar settlement, are also to be demolished by court order, but residents have until March 2018 before the ruling is implemented.
The court accepted Palestinian claims that they were built on private Palestinian land and must be vacated.
About 430,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank — occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War — among 2.6 million Palestinians.
The settlements are illegal under international law and seen by a large part of the international community as a main obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Etzion bloc has over the years grown into a large cluster of settlements south of Jerusalem, and officials expect it to form part of Israel under any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Israeli settlers scuffle with police at West Bank outpost demolition
Israeli settlers scuffle with police at West Bank outpost demolition
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
