TEL AVIV, Israel, May 4 (UPI) -- Israeli authorities are planning to deport members of an international group that advocates non-violent Palestinian resistance against the Israeli presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Foreign and Defense Ministry officials said Sunday.
Members of the International Solidarity Movement, which has been recruiting volunteers abroad and sending them to the front lines in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have been acting as human shields in the region.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said when ISM volunteers "disrupt public order," soldiers will detain them, hand them over to the police who will then deport them.
Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim accused the group of "provocatively...forming a human shield."
He said volunteers endanger themselves and sometimes the soldiers who get off armored bulldozers in an attempt to persuade the activists to move aside. The soldiers are then exposed to Palestinian gunfire, Boim said.
"Their presence encourages clashes between Palestinians and the army," a senior defense source added.
Tom Wallace, a spokesman for the group, told United Press International that deporting the activists is "illegal and a high court in Israel ruled they cannot deport peace activists simply because they are peace activists ... Israel has no legal authority here.
"They can use brute force and deport us but only if they can do it before we are allowed due process in Israel."
Wallace, who is from Boston, estimated that some 30 volunteers – mainly from the United States, Canada, Britain and Italy were in the area now.
In its Web site, against a backdrop of the Palestinian flag, the ISM calls for "resisting the (Israeli) occupation through non-violent direct action."
It advises activists to enter Israel with fictitious stories to gain entrance and tells them how to make their way to the West Bank.
"We believe that it's less suspicious if you come through Israel but you have to have a really good story about why you are coming, and must not mention anything about ISM or knowing, liking or planning to visit Palestinians," it says. "You must play it as though your visit is for other, Israel-based reasons, like tourism, religion, visiting an Israeli friend, etc."
Courses in Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem, advise volunteers how to operate in the field without using force.
Several ISM members were holed up with militants in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, last year.
One member of the movement, Rachel Corey of Washington, was killed when she stood up in front of a bulldozer moving to demolish a house in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Two other activists, Tom Hurndall, 22, of Britain, and Brian Avery, 23, of the United States, were shot and wounded in other incidents.
