Police deployed Monday morning for an apparent raid on the Ramat Gilad outpost near Karnei and Maaleh Shomron. The action comes in the wake of the expulsion of members of the Shvut Ami community on the Shavuot holiday and minutes after the Sabbath ended. Area residents have sent out emergency notices to civilians to arrive at Ramat Gilad and support the residents.
Security forces also destroyed two unoccupied caravans (small mobile homes without wheels) in the Nahalat Yosef outpost near Elon Moreh in Samaria. A third caravan was moved into the Elon Moreh community.
Jewish youth responded to the planned demolitions and the previous expulsions by throwing rocks at Arabs on Highway 55, several miles east of Kfar Saba, possibly as a tactic to divert security forces. Arab sources said at least one driver was hospitalized for wounds, and Israeli media reported that at least four others also were injured. The teenagers set tires on fire on the road, which connects Kalkilya, next to Kfar Saba, with the communities of Karnei Shomron and Kedumim and the Arab city of Shechem.
On Saturday night, as the Sabbath ended, police demolished two wooden shacks at Shvut Ami and allegedly cut the residents' water connection with the nearby town of Kedumim. Former Kedumim member Daniella Weiss called the expulsion ”brutal.”
The police action followed previous demolitions ordered by Defense Minister Ehud Barak the day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from his talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, who demanded that Israel fulfill previous promises to eliminate the hilltop communities and stop all building in Judea and Samaria.
The “outposts” are deemed illegal by the United States because the Sharon government promised not to build any new communities after September, 2001.
In an unrelated incident, police arrested four Arab youth for throwing rocks at Israeli cars.