Israeli forces begin evicting settlers in Hebron

Israeli security forces started evicting dozens of settlers on Wednesday from a building that they illegally took over in a combustible West Bank city, police said.       

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said security forces surrounded the house in Hebron that settlers entered last week without the required military approval. He had no immediate information on any settler resistance.        

The eviction took Israelis by surprise, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had blocked an eviction order requiring the settlers to leave the house just a day earlier.        

The eviction order had threatened to touch off a violent confrontation between security forces and the militant settler community in Hebron.        

The biblical city is home to the traditional burial site of Abraham, the shared patriarch of both Jews and Muslims, and the only place where Jews live in the heart of a West Bank city. It has been a focus of Israeli-Arab violence for decades.        

Hebron settlers and their supporters have violently resisted similar eviction orders, retaliating with attacks against Palestinians.        

About 850 settlers now live in Hebron in heavily guarded enclaves among 180,000 Palestinians. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers enforce a rigid separation between the two sides.