August 22, 2005

Israel fears worst in uprooting 2 West Bank enclaves

By Matt Spetalnick

SANUR, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli settlers vowing to resist evacuation rushed to turn the doomed West Bank enclave of Sanur into a fortress on Monday for a last stand in the biblical heartland against Ariel Sharon's "disengagement plan".

On top of a hulking stone citadel that dominates the tiny hilltop settlement, radical youths climbed ladders, stockpiled supplies and welded metal rods into shapes that could be used to repel Israeli troops due to storm the settlement on Tuesday.

Jewish settlers block Israeli army vehicles from approaching the settlement of Sanur, West Bank, August 21, 2005. Israeli settlers vowing to resist evacuation rushed to turn the doomed West Bank enclave of Sanur into a fortress on Monday for a last stand in the biblical heartland against Ariel Sharon's "disengagement plan". (REUTERS/Jerry Lampen)

In the courtyard below, youngsters drilled on how to hold their ground against police armed with riot shields.

While evacuation of Gaza's 21 settlements went faster and smoother than expected, officials fear 2,000 ultranationalist newcomers holed up in Sanur and neighbouring Homesh will put up fiercer and possibly violent resistance when their turn comes.

Security chiefs are so worried about the risk of a rampage by armed settlers in the occupied West Bank that they have warned Palestinians in nearby villages to stay in their homes.

Despite an obstacle course of army roadblocks, reinforcements from hardline settlements trickled into Sanur overnight, slipping through holes in the razor-wire perimeter fence under the noses of soldiers manning watchtowers.

One man wearing a skullcap walked in after dawn with a Colt pistol and a large hunting knife on his hip.

"They can't stop us," said Roni Martin, 17, who snuck in a week ago. "We are here to fight."

On dusty fields below, bulldozers cleared ground for an encampment of 5,500 soldiers and police, many diverted from empty Gaza settlements, for the last phase of Israel's first evacuation of settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.

The settlers' impending departure is bittersweet for local Palestinians, who outnumber Jewish residents by a ratio of a thousand to one. They welcome any Israeli pullout but are angry that the army plans to retain security control in the area.

HARDLINE TAKEOVER

Sanur and Homesh, deserted by most of their 500 original mostly secular residents, have been taken over by hardline newcomers, many with large families in tow. They have hunkered down in tents and makeshift huts to await the army's arrival.

The two enclaves are among four small, isolated enclaves in the northern West Bank on Prime Minister Sharon's evacuation list and make up only a fraction of Israel's 230,000 settlers living in 120 settlements in the territory.

For religious Jews, however, uprooting settlers from the West Bank is more wrenching than giving up Gaza, where biblical bonds are more tenuous. Sanur and Homesh overlook a valley where the Bible says Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery.

Settlers are now preparing for a standoff on the roof of a building that served as a military post under the Ottomans, a police station under the British and now houses an art gallery.

They have laid in supplies of food and water and have also stored items such as paint and cooking oil that could be used in clashes with security forces -- as was done in synagogue sieges in two hardline Gaza settlements last week.

The roof is also laden with stacks of serrated iron rods that could be used to erect barricades.

News reports quoted security officials as saying protesters had also stockpiled fragmentation or stun grenades, an allegation settlers deny. "If there is going to be bloodshed, this is the place," a security source said.

The bright yellow gate at Sanur, once a colony of Russian artists until it became a regular target of Palestinian attacks during a 5-year-old uprising, is now reinforced with razor wire and controlled by surly teenagers who turn away most visitors.

Army vehicles have stopped entering since their tyres are slashed almost every time they do. In a possible preview of what is to come, troops scuffled with youths trying to block construction of the army encampment outside Sanur on Sunday.

At Homesh, also dominated by a hard core of settlers, protesters attacked army guards on Sunday night, injuring four soldiers, and torched a military communications tower.

Settler leaders promised to avoid violence but acknowledged they wanted to make the evacuation as traumatic as possible to discourage any further West Bank withdrawals.

"The crazy, the dazed and the riffraff have found shelter in abandoned territory, Sanur and Homesh," Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper columnist Alex Fishman wrote. "No one controls them."

(Additional reporting by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem)

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