RAMALLAH — The Israeli police arrested nine Palestinian youths, including minors, in occupied Jerusalem for allegedly assaulting two ultra-Orthodox Jews with snowballs during the heavy storm a week-and-half ago, a report said Sunday. The Israeli Army Radio said the Jerusalem District Police Minority Division arrested six youths in Jerusalem's Old City Sunday. Three other Palestinians were arrested over the incident Thursday, the report added. The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court extended the six youths' house arrest, after extending the remand of the three arrested last week for four days. The Palestinian youths allegedly attacked the ultra-Orthodox men near the Bab Al-Amoud (Nablus Gate) leading to the Old City of Jerusalem. The suspects allegedly cursed at the two and hurled snowballs at them relentlessly, forcing the two to flee for safety. According to the report, the police were initially hesitant about investigating the attack, as the two Jews had not lodged an official complaint. However, public pressure, generated in particular through social media, motivated the police to investigate the incident. In a separate development, Israel has ordered Palestinian activists to evict the Al-Karamah (Dignity) Village they erected to the northwest of occupied Jerusalem. Kamal Hababeh, head of Beit Iksa village council and an organizer of the activity, said that Israeli military jeeps raided the camp and informed the forced to immediately evict the premises. Hababeh said the soldiers told the activists that the building there was illegal. The official said that they “will not evacuate the village at any price.” The tent village was erected by a group of 400 Palestinians from various West Bank cities and their foreign supporters Friday night in protest of Israeli settlement construction plans in the area, located between Beit Iksa and Lifta. The “tent village” was the second of its kind after the Bab Al-Shams village which was erected in E-1, the bitterly contested tract between occupied Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, to protest Israeli government decision to build thousands of Jewish homes in the area. Israeli forces dismantled it Wednesday night. The Palestinian Authority has said that E-1 land is needed so the future Palestinian state will be viable and have territorial continuity. It warned that Israeli construction there imperils the two-state solution. Israel fears that this could mark a new form of Palestinian protest against Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. Earlier last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not tolerate Palestinian outpost building. “As soon as I was updated on the Palestinian gathering, I ordered its immediate evacuation and it was indeed carried out last night in the best possible manner,” he said of the Bab Al-Shams village.
