Squatters Near Ramallah Evicted

The army today forcibly removed 80 members of the militant Gush Emunim settlement movement from a site near Ramallah on the West Bank where they attempted to set up a settlement last night in defiance of government orders. The troops were forced to break into a deserted Jordanian bunker where the settlers had barricaded themselves and dragged the resistors to buses which returned them to Jerusalem.

The illegal settlement attempt was the first since Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger returned to the Middle East to resume his efforts to promote a second-stage agreement between Israel and Egypt in Sinai.

The Gush Emunim, which consists largely of Orthodox Jews, announced its intention several weeks ago to challenge Kissinger’s peace moves by trying to establish settlements in the administered territories while the Secretary is in the region. Their main purpose apparently is to dramatize their claim that the West Bank belongs to Israel by Divine right.

Last night, militants calling themselves the “Shilo” group, camped at the Biblical site of Shilo or Baal Hatzor near Ramallah. They set up a dining room, makeshift synagogue and yeshiva and an electric generator and planned to open a blacksmith shop today. Those of the group not working set about studying scriptures when the army arrived.

The Gush Emunim got moral and political support in the Knesset from members of the National Religious Party, which is part of the government coalition and from the opposition Likud. Two leaders of the NRP’s “Young Guard,” Zevulun Hammer and Yehuda Ben-Meir, presented a motion urging the government not to use the army to dislodge the illegal settlers. Likud presented Knesset Speaker Israel Yeshayahu with a petition it claimed contained 600,000 signatures of people opposed to any Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.