Israel breaks up settler protest

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Hundreds of Israeli riot police have moved in on a ruined Jewish settlement in the West Bank to remove a group of settlers trying to reclaim the land.

Officers armed with batons dragged the 300 settlers occupying the site away and placed them on waiting buses.

On Monday a group of protesters marched to the Homesh settlement vowing to rebuild it and refused to leave.

The Homesh settlement was closed in 2005 as part of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

The protesters, most of them youths, walked to the ruined settlement on Monday under the protection of the Israeli army.

As part of their three-day protest they had set up tents and begun piling up the remnants of the buildings which were demolished by Israeli forces during the 2005 pull-out.

Our goal is not to clash but to return again and again and again until the flag of Israel will once again fly over the lands we were expelled from Yossi Dagan, protester One family who were forced out of Homesh at that time held the ritual circumcision of their newborn son at the site.

While the protest has now ended, the squatters have vowed to return:

"Our goal is not to clash but to return again and again and again until the flag of Israel will once again fly over the lands we were expelled from because all the country understands now that the disengagement, the expulsion, was a mistake," Yossi Dagan, one of the group, told Israel Army Radio.

Historic withdrawal

Homesh was one of four Jewish settlements in the West Bank forced to close by the government in accordance with the disengagement plan drawn up by the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

It was the first time Israel had withdrawn from Palestinian land captured in the 1967 war.

The houses of the settlers were demolished in agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

About 450,000 settlers remain in about 120 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

All of the 8,500 or so settlers in Gaza were removed in a six-day operation.