Jerusalem, Dec 2 (DPA) Violent confrontations broke out in the West Bank Wednesday, as Israeli settlers opposed to a 10-month construction halt in settlements tried to prevent defence ministry officials from enforcing the freeze.
A spokesman for the settlers said two protesters were arrested in the northern West Bank as settlers prevented inspectors from entering four settlements.
Police also detained the head of a settlement regional council in the West Bank, after he blocked their entry into his settlement.
Some 60 settlers from a settlement near Nablus began a march to the Palestinian city but staged a sit-in to block the path of the inspectors.
Similar protests were held in the West Bank Tuesday, with settlers blocking roads and in one location – Kiryat Arba near Hebron – forced the inspectors to beat a retreat.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the 10-month freeze on construction a week ago, in an attempt to restart stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the freeze as insufficient. He is demanding a total halt to all Israeli construction in the West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem as a condition for resuming peace talks. Israel-Palestinian peace talks
were suspended a year ago as Israel began an election campaign.
Netanyahu said Tuesday that the freeze was a one-time, temporary move, but settlers have vowed to fight it and to ignore injunctions to halt construction.
Religious-nationalist Jews, who make up the majority of Israeli settlers, view the West Bank as part of the Biblical Jewish homeland and oppose handing the territory over to non-Jewish rule.
