Israeli soldiers swooped Sunday to remove a group of women Jewish settlers who had barricaded themselves inside a container in the center of the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron.
Around 100 settlers had installed the vast metal container near the district of Tel Roumeida in an attempt to set up an illegal outpost in Hebron.
"It is Jewish land and we are returning to it," settler spokesman Noam Arnon said quoted by AFP.
A group of women had locked themselves inside the container with small children but soldiers later succeeded in breaking in and carrying them out.
Several young demonstrators clashed with the soldiers.
Reuters said police chased the settlers through fields and tackled them to the ground. Settlers fought back.
A witness said two settler women violently beat a policewoman trying to arrest them, added Reuters.
Hebron is often a flashpoint for clashes between some 400 Jewish settlers who live among the city's Palestinian population of 120,000.
Under a US-brokered January 1997 agreement, Israel withdrew its troops from four-fifths of Hebron, retaining control of 20 percent of the city where the settlers and around 15,000 Palestinians live - (Agencies)
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