News Brief

Israeli settlers clashed with police near the Jewish West Bank town of Efrat on the second anniversary of the Gaza disengagement.

Wednesday’s Hebrew date marked two years since Israel began forcibly removing settlers from the Gaza Strip, and the clashes Wednesday involved former residents of the evacuated Gaza settlement of Nitzanit vowing they’d return to their former homes.

Hundreds of right-wing activists and settler youths skirted police roadblocks in an attempt to reach the Eitam hilltop near Efrat to establish a new settlement outpost. Efrat’s municipality claims Eitam is part of the original government-sanctioned plan for the town’s limits and that the land is owned by Jews.

Several demonstrators were arrested in the melee, including Hebron rabbi Moshe Levinger. Israeli security forces also blocked a group of Peace Now activists, who oppose Israeli settlement building, who tried to enter Efrat.

Meanwhile, in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip, thousands of settlers held a ceremony marking the anniversary.

Right-wing activists promised to launch plans for several new settlement outposts in the coming months.

More than 600 French citizens made aliyah Wednesday. The two flights, from Paris and Marseilles, were organized by the Jewish Agency for Israel and AMI, which promotes and supports aliyah from France.

Most of the olim were families, and their most popular destinations were Netanya, Ashdod and Jerusalem. A few young students moved to Tel Aviv, and a smattering of families moved to Eilat and Akko.

The flight from Paris included Moise and Louise Bettan, a 96-year-old man married to a 91-year-old woman, who made aliyah in their wheelchairs. The couple is moving to Netanya.

Gilles Taieb, president of AMI, noted that the flights were timed to coincide with Tisha B’Av. “Jews were kicked out of ancient Jerusalem, then were kicked out of Spain by the Inquisition, which also came on Tisha B’Av. Many of them left Spain and moved to North Africa,” he said. “Those Jews left to North Africa and moved to France and now, 2,000 years later, are moving back to Israel.”