Nine months on, indictments filed against 3 Amona evacuation protesters

Indictments were filed Sunday at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court against three men accused of disrupting police efforts to carry out the evacuation of the illegal Amona outpost in February.

The three will be charged with violating a military order prohibiting non-residents from entering the area and preventing officers from carrying out their duties. In addition, one of the men is accused of using force and threats to prevent an arrest.

No charges were filed for assaulting a police officer, though 60 cops were injured during the clearing of the outpost, according to authorities. Protesters hurled rocks at officers, threw bleach and acid at them, hit them with metal rods and sprayed them with tear gas.

No names or ages for the three were available. A police spokesperson described them as youths.

Sunday’s charges were the only ones handed down thus far against protesters at the Amona razing nine months ago.

According to Sunday’s indictment, police told the three men that the area surrounding the outpost had been declared a closed military zone and that further entry by non-residents was prohibited. However, the suspects refused to comply with the order and climbed up the hill to where the evacuation was taking place.

Police estimated that 1,000 people — the majority of them teenage boys — demonstrated in Amona, barricading themselves inside the outpost’s buildings and forcing officers to remove them one by one.

It was in evacuating the outpost’s synagogue that the majority of the officers were injured.

The protesters had made the synagogue their last stand after over a day of evictions from the outpost, with clashes marring what police and others had hailed as a mostly orderly operation.

Graffiti found on the walls inside the house of worship included a swastika with the Israel Police symbol at its center. Other graffiti called for “Death to Zionists” and castigated “Zio-Nazis” and “Zionists from hell.”

At the time, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said he would see to it that the violent protesters would “be brought to justice,” adding that the “thousands of hours of video footage” documenting the outbursts would lead to “serious indictments.”

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.