Security forces clash with settlers during West Bank outpost demolition

Israeli security forces arrested 18 far-right activists for violently protesting the demolition of an illegal outpost in the central West Bank, a Border Police spokesman says.

The troops had arrived at Maoz Esther adjacent to the Koshav Hashachar settlement in order to demolish five makeshift buildings that had been built on private Palestinian land, says a spokeswoman for the Civil Administration, the Defense Ministry body that authorizes West Bank construction.

A Border Police spokesman says that the majority of arrests were for assaulting officers and he added that a number of the primarily young activists hurled food at the troops as they pulled demonstrators away from the scene in order to bulldoze the buildings.

The Honenu legal aid organization representing the arrested activists — most of them not residents of the outpost — says the border cops used excessive force in detaining them.

— Jacob Magid