Israel mobilises troops to oust settlers

ISRAEL is mobilising 4,000 police and soldiers to forcibly remove Jewish settlers from two unauthorised West Bank outposts, military officials said yesterday.

The move is a possible sign that acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to deal more firmly with extremists than his predecessors.

Israeli police raided the militant Hamas group's campaign offices in east Jerusalem yesterday, less than a week before the January 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections. They confiscated material and shut down the office for 15 days.

Israel's 243,000 settlers have traditionally wielded influence far in excess of their numbers. Settlers have set up scores of unauthorised outposts throughout the West Bank, and some extremists have attacked Palestinians without being punished.

Over the weekend, settlers angry at the government's plan to evict Jewish squatters from an empty Palestinian market in the West Bank town of Hebron, went on a rampage, burning empty Palestinian stores and homes and scuffling with police.

The violence, also aimed at the government's plan to dismantle another outpost, Amona, in the central West Bank, sparked a rare bout of soul searching by Israeli officials who rued being too lenient with extremist settlers. They warned that hardline settlers were trying to set up a breakaway state in the West Bank.

"There is a large group, partly young people, who don't recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told Israel Radio.

Mr Olmert, who took over after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke two weeks' ago, reacted angrily to the Hebron violence and said he would deal firmly with settlers who break the law.

Government officials said he was considering holding settler lawbreakers without trial or charge, a measure Israel usually only uses against Palestinians. He also called on Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz to draw up plans to evacuate all the unauthorised outposts erected since 2001, which Israel had committed to dismantle in 2003 under the US-backed road map peace plan.

Government officials estimated that roughly two dozen of the more than 100 unauthorised outposts set up since 1997 would be dismantled. The Palestinians also have not fulfilled their commitment under the peace plan to dismantle militant groups. Mr Olmert's tough talk on the outposts could be part of a move to cast himself as a moderate ahead of Israel's March 28 elections.

Fatah and Hamas have pledged to avoid violence on election day and work together afterward, but a Hamas leader has ruled out peace talks with Israel.

Jerusalem is a highly symbolic issue for Israelis and Palestinians. Israel claims east Jerusalem as part of its capital. Palestinians want the area, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, to serve as their future capital.