950809

Jewish settlers

set more camps

in hill war

JERUSALEM: Jewish settlers declared a fresh outbreak of their "war of the hills" with the Israeli government on Tuesday, saying they had set up makeshift camps on 15 hills in a campaign against Palestinian self-rule.

The radical minority group known as This Is Our Country said it erected tents and generators and brought in water supplies on the rocky outcrops in an attempt to build new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The tent cities, bordering existing West Bank settlements including those at Hebron, Kiryat Arba, and Eilon Moreh, were set up in defiance of the Israeli government, which has vowed to crack down on such protests, the group said.

Earlier on Tuesday, settler groups blocked 40 roads across Israel during the evening rush hour as part of their campaign to stop the spread of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank, police chief Assaf Hefetz said.

One group succeeded in blocking the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road for almost an hour at the main gateway to the holy city and later regrouped on a hill near the Palestinian village of Nabi Samuel after police dispersed them.

About 200 protesters, mostly children, shouting "Rabin, treason" gathered at another demonstration near the Givat Zeev settlement in the occupied West Bank but police prevented them stopping traffic, an AFP correspondent said.

Hefetz said 100 protesters were arrested and about 60 people were injured as 2,000 police and border guards moved in to drag the settlers and their supporters away from traffic. Many continued their protest on the roadsides.

Among those detained was Moshe Feiglin, head of This Is Our Country, which has urged settlers to transform their passive resistance campaign against autonomy into real civil disobedience starting with the roadblocks.

The group also called for 30 new settlements to be built on the West Bank as symbols of resistance to Palestinian rule.-AFP