Border Police forces and personnel from the Civil Administration department of the Defense Ministry on Sunday removed settler activists from illegal outposts and encampments they had established in closed military zones in the West Bank.

According to a spokesperson for the activists, the inhabitants of four such outposts were removed and forced to leave the closed military zone.

The Civil Administration denied, however, that any illegal settlement outposts had been “evacuated” during the course of Sunday, saying instead merely that the closed military zone orders had been enforced and that no buildings had been demolished.

A spokesperson for the Civil Administration, which manages civilian affairs in the parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control, declined to say how many such orders had been enforced over the course of the day.

The action followed a report on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered the evacuation of 14 illegal West Bank outposts as a measure to combat a recent spike in settler violence.

According to the report by Channel 12, security agencies view the outposts as founts of Jewish extremism that serve as staging grounds for attacks on Palestinian villages and civilians, as well as on the IDF and police.

Security personnel also hoped to detain some 70 extremist activists........

© The Times of Israel