Israeli Security Forces Demolish Illegal Outpost Buildings in West Bank, Negev

Israeli security forces evacuated two illegal settlement outposts, one in the northern West Bank and one in the Negev desert in southern Israel, which is within Israel’s sovereign borders. Some 120 soldiers and police officers early on Wednesday morning demolished two modular buildings at the site of Homesh, a former Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank that was evacuated as part of the 2005 disengagement but has since been remade as an illegal outpost that hosts a yeshiva, or Jewish seminary. The two buildings were used as makeshift dormitories for the yeshiva’s students; the building housing the yeshiva was not destroyed, however. The site has seen more visitors and activity since the December killing of student Yehuda Dimentman in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving the yeshiva; it is the fourth time that the buildings have been taken down in the last two months. In southern Israel, Jewish activists established an illegal outpost on state land near the Bedouin city of Rahat with two prefab buildings. They named it Ma’ale Paula after the wife of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Late Tuesday night Israel Police arrived to evacuate the site, finishing the forcible removal of the activists by 9 a.m. Wednesday and detaining two people for questioning.