Palestinian media reported that dozens of Palestinian activists re-erected tents
at an outpost northwest of Jerusalem on Friday.
The outpost, dubbed Bab
al-Karamah (Dignity), was first erected a week earlier in the area between Beit
Iksa and Lifta in protest against Israeli settlement construction plans in the
area.
The IDF dismantled the outpost and evacuated all the activists from
the encampment on Monday.
The IDF spokesman denied on Friday evening that
the outpost had been re-erected, and said only 40 activists gathered in the area,
but they later dispersed.
“The idea of building this village extension is
to protect [Palestinian] legally owned lands and for it to be the second such
village built to protect from growing efforts at transforming Arab Jerusalem,”
said Kamal Hababa, who heads the Beit Iksa village council.
This is the
second such outpost erected by Palestinians in the past few weeks. The first, encampment, Bab al- Shams – built on an undeveloped area in the Ma’aleh Adumim
settlement, known as E1 – was demolished two weeks ago.
The activists had
been targeting E1 to protest Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s November 30
decision to advance plans to build 3,500 Jewish homes on the site.
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