Barely 48 hours after eight Jewish yeshiva students were murdered by a terrorist in Jerusalem, eight Jewish youths were arrested by government forces at the satellite neighborhood of Givat HaOr, next to Beit El, north of Jerusalem.

When the Israel Police and Border Guard officers left the area, however, there were more Jews at the Givat HaOr community than when they had started their operation.

Givat HaOr is a group of several old structures from either the Jordanian or British occupation of the area, which has become the site of a new Jewish presence - unauthorized by the government - just outside Beit El.  Some 30 people spent this past Sabbath at Givat HaOr, including two families, and more joined them for the Third Meal late in the afternoon. 

As dusk fell and the Sabbath ended, a small group of Border Guard police officers arrived and began arresting some of the people.  Their hope that this would lead the rest of the activists to go quietly was not actualized, however, and the tensions heightened as the Border Guardsmen threatened to use violence and the youths jeered and yelled.  The former called for reinforcements, another two dozen policemen soon arrived, and their threats of violence quickly turned into the real thing. 

Tuvia Lerner, who photographed much of the event, told Arutz-7, "A Border Guardsman by the name of Yosef Asulin - at least that's what his name tag said - gave a strong blow with his rifle to the back of a boy.  Another one, who was not wearing a name tag, strongly hit the hand of someone holding my camera, trying to get him to drop it; he almost succeeded, but I told him I would hold him personally responsible if the camera broke, and he went elsewhere and started acting wildly - giving a very painful knee in the groin to one of the youths..."

The incident continued with the forcible removal of some of the youths, four Border Guardsmen to one boy.  Many of the girls there yelled at the forces: "Is this what you made Aliyah for? ... You should be ashamed!... Does your Bible say the same thing as ours?..."

Lerner said that of the eight youths who were detained, "five are being held on charges of attacking a Border Guard officer. However, there was only one such officer there, and I was with him the whole time and I saw that he wasn't attacked... Two others were released today [Sunday morning] after they were accused of attacking a policeman. I can testify that this is not true; the police choked one of them from behind, his brother tried to free him - not by attacking the policeman, but by pulling his brother. Then a second policeman joined the fray, and the two boys were arrested."

As the incident progressed, residents from Beit El arrived, knowing that the presence of many people can stop an outpost/community from being destroyed - as occurred in Eish Kodesh last week.  "People must realize that Givat HaOr is only one of the places they want to take down," Lerner said.  "The Olmert-Livni government wants to take down Givat Assaf and Migron [two strategically-located communities in the vicinity, with a total of close to 65 families - ed.].  Just as Givat Assaf protects Beit El, Givat HaOr protects Assaf and Migron."

By Sunday night, all eight had been released, having signed papers promising they would stay away from Givat HaOr for the next 15 days.

The Givat HaOr and Homesh First organizers called on supporters to return to Givat HaOr as early as Sunday night.  "The government has shown its true face," the Homesh First organization announced in a statement, "that while it allows a mourning tent for the perpetrator of a slaughter to function with no problem in Jerusalem, it sends its forces to fight against its own citizens who wish to build the Land."