In brief: Israeli high court orders West Bank settlement demolished

JERUSALEM – Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to demolish the West Bank settlement of Amona within two years and relocate its 300 Jewish residents, moving to end a years-long legal battle.

In the ruling late Thursday, Supreme Court President Asher Grunis acknowledged that demolishing the community would be “difficult and painful” for its residents. However, he wrote, “this difficulty cannot enable illegal construction on private land” or justify failure to comply with the law.

Established in 1995 without explicit government permission, Amona is the largest of the unauthorized outposts in the West Bank and was built largely on privately owned Palestinian land.

In Amona, the high court ruling was met with anger and dismay. Community Rabbi Yair Fink told local media that residents were not taken by surprise, given the prolonged “legal saga.” At the same time, he said, “we believe the Supreme Court is mistaken and, moreover, detached from the people and the Zionist vision.”

Police question IRA veteran after wife is found stabbed

DUBLIN – Detectives interrogated a prominent Irish Republican Army veteran Friday on suspicion of stabbing his wife several times on Christmas Eve, an attack condemned by the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party.

Police said Pearse McCauley tried to flee after they arrived at his family’s rural home in County Cavan, northwest of Dublin, on Wednesday to find his wife bleeding from a deep chest wound and the couple’s two young children nearby.

Pauline Tully McCauley was reported in stable condition after treatment for a collapsed lung.