Hebron settlers brace for eviction

Clashes with police
On Wednesday morning, three settlers who appeared about 12 years old and were disguised with cat masks threw stones at army Jeeps and at Palestinian children walking by the building on their way to school. No one was injured.

Later in the day, youths clashed with riot police near the building, hurling paint-filled balloons, and tried to break into another Hebron property claimed by settlers before being blocked by police.

The attacks on security forces drew condemnations from Israeli leaders. "We must be clear," President Shimon Peres said Wednesday. "If someone throws a stone at a soldier, it is as if he is throwing a stone at the state of Israel."

One young teenager with the long sidelocks of Orthodox Jews seated outside the house said he wasn't in school because "some things are more important."

A friend, a boy wearing a knitted black skullcap, said their goal was to eventually "kick all of the Arabs out of Hebron."

Like all of the teenagers at the building, they were distrustful of the news media and refused to give their names.

Fear of spreading violence
David Wilder, a spokesman for the Hebron settlers, said the violence was a result of the government's actions, which made people "very upset."

The violence threatens to spread. Two Palestinian villages in another part the West Bank reported settler rampages before dawn Tuesday.

An Arab resident of east Jerusalem was stabbed and wounded early Wednesday. Rosenfeld said the man claimed the assailants were Jewish, but that the circumstances remained unclear.

At the Hebron building, a bearded teenager handed an AP reporter a printed page claiming that a Hebron Jewish group stabbed the man in response to the wounding of the 16-year-old the day before. "Jewish blood is not worthless," read the note.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded that Israel bring the situation under control.

"The Israeli government must understand that it has a duty to stop these thugs who continue to attack Palestinians. We hold the Israeli government responsible," Abbas said Wednesday.

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