Israeli police clear Homesh settlement

JERUSALEM, March 28 (UPI) -- Israeli police have evacuated 480 protesters who have spent the last two days on the ruins at Homesh.

About 1,000 officers were sent to the destroyed settlement Wednesday morning, and began ordering protesters to board buses and evacuate the ruins, Israel's Haaretz News Service reported.

The police gave the squatters a deadline to evacuate the site, after which they began forcibly removing the protesters -- picking them up and putting them on buses -- said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

The protesters, mostly young people, originally arrived at the former settlement of Homesh along with 2,500 other demonstrators, but most of them dispersed throughout the 2-day protest.

The young people at the site punctured tires on four Border Police vehicles, burned tires and placed barricades on the road to Homesh, but never actively blocked the road to soldiers.