Israel arrests 150 activists

2005-08-04 11:00

Jerusalem - Around 150 right-wing activists were arrested overnight after infiltrating a settlement in the northern Gaza Strip which is to be evacuated this month, Israeli police said on Thursday.

The group were all detained in Nissanit, one of three settlements in the north, which has been classified as a closed military zone in the run-up to the August 17 start date of the government's disengagement plan.

Police made the arrests during house to house searches, bussing detainees back inside Israel in the early hours.

Around 40 other hardline opponents of the pullout plan were also arrested as they tried to sneak into the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the south of the territory around the Kissufim border crossing, police said.

The arrests came after the second day of mass protests by settlers and their supporters in the southern Israeli town of Ofakim where demonstrators consistently voiced their determination to enter Gaza in defiance of the security forces.

Thousands of activists remain camped out in Ofakim and Pinhas Wallerstein, one of the leaders of Yesha, said they would continue to use it as a launch pad for other schemes designed to disrupt the pullout.

"We will use Ofakim as our forward headquarters for other operations," he told public radio.

- AFP