Police Instructed to Use Force in [Amona] House Demolitions (Israeljustice.com)
Excerpts;
Israeli police underwent special training for an assault on thousands of protesters during the demolition of nine homes in a Jewish community in the West Bank in 2006.
A senior Israeli police officer testified that 1,300 troops were told to club, trample and gas protesters, most of them teenagers, who sought to block the demolition of nine unlicensed Jewish homes in Amona in February 2005 [2006]. The troops, who trained for up to four days, used clubs and horses to injure 300 protesters, some of them seriously, despite the assessment that resistance would be passive.
“Special emphasis was placed on the population that we were going to confront,” Yuval Goldstein, a brigade commander of the Border Police, said.
In testimony to the Jerusalem Magistrates Court on June 18, Goldstein recalled the assault by 6,000 mounted police, anti-riot police and army troops at Amona. The force stormed the 5,000 demonstrators, who stood or sat with arms linked outside the houses slated for demolition.
Goldstein was testifying at the trial of police officer Eyal Fero. Fero was charged with aggravated assault of a reserve army colonel, Mordechai Yogev, who sought to persuade the young protesters to leave the homes. Two Knesset members were also injured in the police operation.