Gaza: Cops to 'cage' protesters
2005-07-27 17:26
Jerusalem - Israeli police are to cage hardline Jewish settlers who forcibly resist next month's pullout of all Israeli troops and residents from the occupied Gaza Strip, said police on Wednesday.
Wooden cages measuring about 2m² would be suspended from cranes to trap settlers who tried to entrench themselves on top floors of houses to be dismantled in the 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza.
The system was being put to the test this week in training exercises at a mock settlement, built on a military base in southern Israel, where thousands of soldiers and police were being prepped for the pullout.
Israeli troops also used the cage tactic in 1982 on radicals who refused to leave the Yamit settlement in Sinai before the peninsula was returned to Egypt after the signing of peace between the two countries in 1979.
Israel was to dismantle all 21 Jewish settlements and military bases in the Gaza Strip and four isolated enclaves in the West Bank in an operation scheduled to begin on August 17.
- AFP