Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday ordered two more West Bank outposts dismantled as required under a U.S.-backed peace plan.
At a third outpost, settlers held a ceremony signaling they don’t intend to give up. Security officials, meanwhile, said the army has a plan for carrying out the orders.
Israel must dismantle scores of unauthorized outposts under the road map peace plan it signed in June.
Sharon ordered four other West Bank outposts dismantled last week, but settlers appealed to the Supreme Court. A decision is expected in the next few days.
If the court sides with the government, 3,500 soldiers and police officers will carry out the evacuations, security officials said.
Sharon on Sunday ordered the evacuation of two new outposts, Havat Maon and Tal Binyamin. Havat Maon has been dismantled at least twice in the past and rebuilt.
Pinchas Wallerstein, a settler leader, promised stiff resistance.
“We will fight in all the legal and political channels and battle on the ground against the evacuation of the outposts,” Wallerstein said.
Hundreds of settlers gathered Sunday at the outpost of West Tapuah where they took a religious scroll into the synagogue in a ceremony symbolizing permanence. Some carried assault rifles and held signs saying “Kahane was right.”
The outpost was established by followers of the late U.S.-born Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahane, who pushed for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the West Bank, was assassinated in New York in 1990 and Israel has banned his militant movement as racist.
Israel says it has removed or prevented the establishment of more than 40 outposts since the road map was signed in June. Peace Now, an Israeli group opposed to the settlements, says Israel has taken down only about eight of the more than 100 outposts, but settlers have established five new ones that remain standing.
Also Sunday, Israel reauthorized work permits for 29,000 Palestinian laborers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, weeks after revoking the permits following a suicide bombing near Tel Aviv, the army said.
And five Israelis who refused to do compulsory military service in protest against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were jailed Sunday for a year, the first such sentences since the Palestinian revolt began more than three years ago.
“Every day troops commit crimes in the occupied territories,” one of the men, Haggai Matar, said at Jaffa Military Court, referring to Israeli military actions in Palestinian territories. “While we go to the stockade, they remain free.”
