Police remove rooftop protesters, completing evacuation of Ofra buildings

1 March 2017, 1:56 pm

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Police successfully remove the final protesters from the rooftop of one of the nine houses slated to be demolished in the West Bank settlement of Ofra. The move completes the evacuation of the buildings.

Special border police forces were sent in to bring the protesters down after a two-day standoff.

Police said yesterday that they did not intend to forcefully remove the protesters from the rooftops and would instead close off the buildings and wait for them to come down on their own.

Israeli police forces arrive to evacuate protesters on February 28, 2017 in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, during an operation by Israeli forces to demolish nine buildings. (AFP Photo/Menahem Kahana)

The operation to evacuate the nine buildings — eight of them occupied — built on private Palestinian land began yesterday, with police removing right-wing activists and youths from the houses in intermittently violent clashes throughout the day.