TEL AVIV - In order to demonstrate refugees’ sense of dislocation, anti-disengagement settler protestors started sleeping on the streets Monday night. Their struggle’s slogan: “The transfer will turn us into refugees.”
Tens of right-wing activists have already settled for the night next to Tel Aviv’s northern train station, at Petah Tikva’s city hall square, in Ramat Gan and in Rehovot.
In Jerusalem, settlers who prepared to spend Monday night downtown said municipal supervisors kicked them out claiming they are pose an “obstacle to the public.”
However, a source in Jerusalem city hall said supervisors told the demonstrators they are endangering themselves, causing them to wilingly leave the scene.
'Non-violent, legal measure'
In Rehovot, Shlomo who is a sleep-out demonstrator, told Ynet: “This is a non-violent and legal measure, a quiet measure. Some of the people who will spend the night on the streets are teenagers; most are men, but there are married couples too, and if any women show up, separation will be maintained.”
Rehovot police allowed the outdoor sleepover. “As long as traffic and public peace are not disturbed, they can sleep,” said the local police intelligence officer Ran Batat. “We supervise them so that no provocation is created,” he said.
Shlomo explained the outdoor slumber party's rational. “By sleeping out on the streets, we want to demonstrate that when people are taken out of their homes, they become refugees. We want to demonstrate how painful this measure is,” he said.
'All this was taken away from me'
In Tel Aviv, about 20 youths began the night with three little tents, which the police later asked them to dismantle, leaving them in their sleeping bags with the skies as roof over their head.
The teenagers also carried a sign, which read: “I too, just like you had a home where I resided, where I celebrated, where I raised my children. I had friends too, neighbors. I also had a job of which I made a living, all this was taken away from me.”
A source at Tel Aviv municipality said the youths were allowed to spend the night there, since they do not cause any disturbances to traffic.
