IDF completes evacuation of Oz Zion outpost

[oberliner]

IDF forces removed the remaining settler activists from the Oz Zion outpost near Beit El in the early morning hours of Sunday morning, at the end of a weekend that started with clashes between teenage activists and Border Police that left five officers lightly injured.

Earlier Saturday night, several hundred religious male high school pupils voluntarily left the outpost in a deal reached with the IDF that prevented a potentially violent forced evacuation on Friday afternoon, right before Shabbat.

The teenagers, who had come to the outpost for Shabbat as part of an event organized by Kiryat Arba Rabbi Dov Lior, Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu and former Kedumim council head Daniella Weiss, had all the while planned to leave Oz Zion, which is adjacent to Beit El, on Saturday night.

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=297755

[Scootaloo]

1. Now what about the rest of 'em? n/t

[delrem]

3. "The outpost is located off Route 60,

at the T-junction next to the Givat Assaf outpost and the Beit El settlement in the Binyamin region of the West Bank."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giv'at_Asaf

Giv'at Asaf is an Israeli outpost in the West Bank. ... It has about 30 structures and is home to some 30 families. It was established in May 2001
...
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. In Giv'at Asaf's case, according to the 2005 Sasson Report, the outpost was built on privately owned Palestinian land, and is therefore also illegal under Israeli law. A case involving the forging of documents for a land sale at Givat Assaf led to an indictment for illegal land transference from Palestinians to Israelis."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_El

"Beit El (Hebrew: בֵּית אֵל ) is an Israeli settlement and a local council in the Benjamin region of the central West Bank, within the borders of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. The religiously observant town is located in the hills north of Jerusalem east of the Palestinian city of al-Bireh. In 2009, it had a population of 5,308. The head of the local council is Moshe Rosenbaum. Jewish settlements are widely regarded by international community as illegal under international law according to Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49), which prohibits an occupying power transferring citizens from its own territory to occupied territory,[1] but the Israeli government disputes this on the basis that no one was moved by the government, but rather relocated of their own free will."

Cool.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

2. I'm happy that the outpost activists saw reason and decided to leave.

Perhaps it will set a precedent and something for the other settlers to think about.