Israelis back in cleared West Bank settlement

Accompanied by Israeli military jeeps, the settlers arrived at the site of the former colony of Homesh in the northern West Bank, the sources said.

Palestinian pupils from the nearby village of Buraq threw stones at the soldiers escorting the settlers, they added.

Limor Har Melehk-Son, a former Homesh resident and the group's spokeswoman, said the settlers were planning a ceremony on the site "to present a group of 25 families who intend to return as soon as possible and live there".

"Dozens of people are already there and hundreds more are en route for the ceremony," she said. "The mistake of withdrawing unilaterally in 2005 has been fixed."

The settlements of Homesh, Sanur, Qadim and Ganim in the northern West Bank were evacuated in August last year during Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but the sites remained under army control as a closed military zone.

"We have to return to all the places from which Israel withdrew," Har Melehk-Son said last week. "This is the start of a process that will allow us to return to those places from where we fled."

She said the 25 families who had lived in Homesh were ready to set up home in the former settlement, if need be "in tents".