HEBRON, West Bank, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Israeli troops dragged some 250 hard-line Jewish settlers from a disputed building Thursday in the West Bank city of Hebron.
About two dozen people were injured as 600 soldiers and policemen in full riot gear used stun grenades and tear gas to repel the settlers, paramedics said. One settler sustained serious head wounds and a police officer was injured when settlers threw acid at his face, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Following the eviction, young settlers rampaged through Palestinian neighborhoods and fields, fighting residents, setting cars and olive trees ablaze and trashing houses, witnesses said.
Israel's national emergency medical disaster service deployed two helicopters and a fleet of ambulances to evacuate the wounded, Ynetnews reported.
The eviction, ordered after a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and leaders of an umbrella organization of municipal councils of West Bank Jewish communities failed to reach a compromise, came about three weeks after Israel's High Court of Justice ordered the state to evacuate the building.
The four-story building, which occupants dubbed the House of Peace, is near the Cave of the Patriarchs, the second holiest site for Jews after Jerusalem's Temple Mount. It is also venerated by Christians and Muslims.
The disputed building was built and owned by Hebron resident Faiz Rajabi, who denied selling it to the settlers.
The settlers claim they lawfully bought the building and assert Rajabi backed out because he discovered they were Jewish.
