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Israeli army removes

settler mobile homes

NABLUS, (West Bank): The Israeli army on Monday started to remove six mobile homes set up by Jewish settlers on Palestinian land south of Nablus in the West Bank, witnesses said.

Palestinian sources said dozens of policemen and soldiers trucked three of the homes away and were working to remove the others.

A policeman on the scene said all the mobile homes would be removed on Monday but two wooden shacks built by the settlers would be taken away at another time.

The Jews from nearby Yizhar settlement who put up the homes did not interfere with the operation.

Residents of Burin village, whose lands the mobile homes were on, said they had complained to Israeli and Palestinian officials about the homes.

Some 130,000 Jews have settled among over one million Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel captured it from Jordan in war in 1967. According to the 1993 PLO-Israel peace deal, settlements are up for negotiation at final status talks starting in May.

Israel froze new settlement building when the Labour party came to power in 1992 but Palestinians have complained it has continued illegally confiscating Arab land to build bypass roads for settlers and to expand existing settlements.-Reuter