19 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

 A Palestinian man was arrested at Ni’lin checkpoint on Tuesday, April 15 during a Nakba Day demonstration. The procession successfully crossed the checkpoint which separates the West Bank from Palestinian territories seized in 1948. They were violently forced back by occupation soldiers and police. A Palestinian woman and an international woman were also detained but released that same afternoon.

 During the morning rush hour, several dozen Palestinians and solidarity activists took the Israeli army by surprise and walked through Ni’lin checkpoint. The procession stated their intention to return to their homes in the territories occupied by Israel in 1948 and each presented a placard reading, “permission to enter Palestine: inevitable return,” and bearing the names of Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 Additional Israeli soldiers and police quickly arrived and began attacking the group, shoving and kicking them backwards. Some soldiers used the body of their M16 rifles to hit the procession. During this time soldiers detained three people. Two women were quickly released, but Nabi Saleh resident Naji al Tamimi remains held by Israeli authorities. Israeli soldiers arbitrarily targeted Tamimi, who was peacefully chanting at the time of his arrest. There is a likelihood he was targeted due to his long history of involvement in the peaceful popular struggle against the Israeli occupation.

 The approximately 4 million Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are barred from entering 1948 Palestine, including the holy city of Jerusalem, without rarely-granted permits from Israel. The Ni’lin checkpoint is one of 26 checkpoints which separate the West Bank from the territory which Israel officially considers its own. Of these twenty-six checkpoints, only nine are located on the 1948 “green line”, which is internationally recognized as the basis for the western border of a future Palestinian state. The remaining checkpoints, including the Ni’lin checkpoint, are located at gaps in the Apartheid Wall at places where the wall appropriates Palestinian land. Ni’lin village has achieved international recognition for the tenacity of its nonviolent resistance against the Apartheid Wall in the face of tremendous violence on the part of the Israeli occupation authorities.

 The May 15^thdemonstration was called by grassroots organizers to commemorate the 64^th anniversary of the Nakba, or Catastrophe. In 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and villages following the declaration of the state of Israel. The right of return for the current 4.25 million refugees worldwide is an internationally recognized right and one of the demands of the international Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Ling Lewis is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

22 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

For more photos click here

The weekly demonstration in Ni’lin on Friday April 20^th was relatively quiet compared to previous weeks. Nevertheless, it showed again the disproportionate measures taken by Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian resistance.

The Israeli army propelled skunk spray, tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters. Some of the Palestinian youth, or shabab, responded by throwing stones. One local youth masked with the flag of Palestine was pelted by a rubber-coated bullet, although did not suffer critical injuries. A local photographer was nearly struck in the face by a tear gas canister while attempting to take a closer photo of the Israeli soldiers.

As with each week, the demonstration in Ni’lin began after the midday prayer. It was a leaderless group of approximately thirty people including the shabab, internationals, members of the press, and medics. The protest began with the military deploying streams of skunk water over the Apartheid Wall at protesters including the half-dozen stone slinging youth. Approximately fifteen minutes into the demonstration, the first tear gas canister was launched, aimed at demonstrators near the valley. Moments later, volleys of tear gas canisters were launched over the Wall where the majority of the protesters were gathered.

The first victim of the initial tear gas shots was a local photographer. The canister struck the ground five feet away from him. Before he could run away, he began coughing severely and his eyes turned red. As the pain eased, however, he carried on as if nothing had happened, evidently accustomed to the sensation.

After another half-hour, much of the group slowly made their way towards the valley. As the concession merged in the valley, more tear gas canisters were shot. One medic was struck on his side by a canister but emerged with light injuries. Minutes later the silence was broken by the scream of a young Palestinian. He had been struck by a rubber-coated steel bullet. The medics immediately rushed to him and fortunately he was not seriously injured. The Israeli army continued firing rubber-coated bullets and tear gas canisters and the shabab replied with their stones.

When a local photographer approached the Wall to take photos of the Israeli soldiers, a tear gas canister was launched in his direction. It missed hitting his face by millimetres but there was no escaping the suffocation that ensued from the gas.

The demonstration came to an end shortly thereafter. As the shabab walked away, the rest of the group followed. The Israeli soldiers maintained their position securely behind the Apartheid Wall, while some of the demonstrators continued to suffer the after-effects of the tear gas.

Since 1967, the town of Ni’lin has been subject to land expropriation to an extreme extent. Following the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, a large part of Ni’lin was annexed to the nascent Israeli state. Over half of the town’s land has come under the control of Israel through the building of illegal settlements and the Apartheid Wall.

In 2004, Israel disclosed their intention to build the Apartheid Wall in Ni’lin, annexing much of their agricultural land. In 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court gave authorization for the wall to be built. The construction was initially blocked through legal procedures as well as popular non-violent demonstrations. These demonstrations were continuously suppressed through brutal measures taken by the Israeli government, including the killing of five innocent residents, curfews, random deployment of tear gas, and frequent night invasions by the army into homes, which inspired fear and humiliation for the families of Ni’lin. Two years later, the Wall was built. Although Israel claimed it was built in Ni’lin for ‘security purposes’, the Wall de facto annexed land from the villagers of Ni’lin for the profit of the nearby illegal Israeli settlement.

Every Friday the residents of Ni’lin continue to demonstrate and fight for what is rightfully theirs. The tear gas canisters, the sound bombs, the rubber-coated steel bullets, and the occasional live ammunition will never be enough to stop Ni’lin’s resilience. Even the Wall does not lie in portraying the statement that Ni’lin is “still going strong.”

 Sonny is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

6 April 2012 | Refusing to be Enemies: The Book

April 6th Demonstration - Click here for more photos

I’m a bit slow at writing things up, so in the meanwhile, here are some photos  of this past Friday’s action in Ni’lin.  To me the the most vivid pictures were the shebab, including boys who looked as young as 12 , symbolically lobbing stones at and over the gate and wall (probably not visible in my photos), amid clouds of stinging teargas and stinking “skunk water,” and Mohammed Amira calmly standing with his megaphone addressing the soldiers in Hebrew (telling them to go home to their families, and basically trying to get them to reflect on what they’re doing), while himself being sprayed with teargas and targeted with skunk water (they missed him with the “skunk,” as far as I could tell as we returned to his home for cold drinks and a rest, and didn’t notice the tell-tale stench of sewage he would have been carrying if hit.

Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

16 March 2012 | Mondoweiss

Following a police investigation that closed with no criminal charges against the Israeli military, new video evidence in Tristan Anderson’s last round for justice—a civil suit—was brought forth, identifying the solider who injured the peace activist with a long-range tear gas canister in 2009. “Sergeant Jackie” is named as the border patrol officer who shot Anderson in the clip filmed by a Palestinian activist from Ni’lin, the village where Anderson was wounded.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the video, Sgt. Jackie is with two other soldiers, walking towards Palestinians and activists who are in close proximity. Initially, Sgt. Jackie is on the right, then moves to the center as he fires tear gas into the already dispersed crowd. He carries an “extended-range tear gas” launcher, which looks like an oversized rifle. “It’s an experimental weapon,” said Gabby Silverman who was with Anderson that day. Speaking to me, she explained, “not everyone had them [a tear gas launcher] that day.”

An Israeli state attorney was then able to identify Jackie, whose face is not clear in the clip, by applying facial recognition software. Though out of frame, Silverman’s voice is also heard as Anderson’s wounds are dressed and he is transferred into an ambulance. Anderson’s skull was fractured and the frontal lobe of his brain was severely damaged.

Almost as important as naming Anderson’s shooter, the video shows that the border patrol unit Sgt. Jackie was with was at a distance different from the distance stated in testimony given during a military investigation. Silverman said “in order for this to have been a legal shooting, they would have to be about 100 meters away, as opposed to 50 meters away, as what is shown in the video.”

“Justice for Tristan,” Anderson’s support group, explains:

Note the scene where the Border Police are seen standing between two colorful doors. To the side of them, there is a gate going into a grassy area. This is the grassy area where they were standing when they shot Tristan. Activist eyewitnesses have testified all along that the shots were fired from this area. The Border Police, however, have testified that they were at another location on the other side of town, because to shoot a high velocity tear gas grenade from this distance is illegal. This video seriously undermines the IDF’s story by establishing that the shooters lied about their locations, and were in fact standing just where activists say they were.

For Silverman, the video “also establishes the military is willing to lie in order to cover up their story.” During their time in occupied Palestine, Silverman and Anderson attended many demonstrations in Ni’lin. The day Anderson was shot was their fifth protest. When asked if she had seen the Israeli military use the same weapon Anderson was injured with on other occasions, she said it was “standard…this wasn’t an anomaly, it’s part of a pattern of police violence.”

Supporters of Anderson hope the new evidence will be instrumental to both his current civil suit, as well as re-opening a criminal investigation against the Israeli military. “Both sides,” said Silverman, “have political point to make in the courtroom,” explaining the case is in part about negligence, and in part about Israeli’s systematic use of violence against Palestinians.

]]> http://palsolidarity.org/2012/03/video-idf-caught-in-a-lie-about-tristan-anderson/feed/ 0 http://palsolidarity.org/2012/03/when-teargas-and-rubber-bullets-are-not-enough-israeli-soldiers-release-the-hounds-on-unarmed-palestinian-protesters/ http://palsolidarity.org/2012/03/when-teargas-and-rubber-bullets-are-not-enough-israeli-soldiers-release-the-hounds-on-unarmed-palestinian-protesters/#comments Sat, 17 Mar 2012 14:32:53 +0000 jessica http://palsolidarity.org/?p=24229 17 March 2012 | Ni’lin Village

The jaws of Zionism locked - Click here for more photos

In Kufur Qaddoum, clashes between Israeli Border Police officers who shot tear-gas projectiles and rubber-coated bullets and local youth who threw stones at the forces developed. Roughly 15 minutes later – in a scene that seemed as if it was taking place in the American South of the 1960s – Border Police officers decided to sic an army dog at a group of the demonstrators, standing several dozens of meters away. The dog chased after the protesters, biting and locking his jaws into the arm of one of them – Ahmad Shtawi.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For long minutes, the dog would not release its hold of the bleeding arm, even as its handler arrived at the scene and tried to order it to do so. The Border Police officers then arrested Shtawi, despite the fact he was in obvious need of medical attention. Morad Shtawi, a member of the village’s popular committee, tried to reason with the commanding officer into releasing young man. He was then pepper-sprayed and arrested as well.

Two other residents of the village were injured during the demonstration, after being hit by tear-gas projectiles shot directly at them. One was hit in the leg and another in the shoulder.

The weekly protest in Kufer Qaddoum, west of Nablus, was dedicated to the memory of Rachel Corrie – an American protester who was killed after an Israeli D9 bulldozer drove over her in Rafah exactly nine years ago, on March 16, 2003.

In Nabi Saleh, at least three protesters were injured during the demonstration, including an Israeli woman who was hit in the head by a rubber-coated bullet. The two others were hit lightly injured, one by a rubber-coated bullet and the other by a tear-gas projectile. The woman was evacuated to the Ramallah hospital.
Earlier today, large forces entered the village and sprayed a foul-smelling liquid known as the Skunk from a water cannon.
During the night, the army staged yet another raid on the village, the fifth in a week’s time.

In Ni’lin,, demonstration was held despite the rainy weather, the demonstration was dedicated to the American activist Tristan Anderson who was shot by high velocity tear gas projectile in his head by the Israeli soldiers in 13.03.2009 in the middle of Ni’lin village. also commemorating the anniversary to the killing of Rachel Corrie in gaza strip by an israeli military bulldozer.
Israeli soldiers fired massive tear gas canister at protester,rubber coated bullets and skunk water,one demonstrator was hit with a rubber bullet in his hand and was treated directly.

Like every Friday, on March 9th residents of Ni’lin village, west of Ramallah, went to protest the Apartheid wall, which encloses their lands and denies them of basic human rights. A part of the protest was an attempt to break a hole in the wall. Activists were met with rubber coated steel bullets, skunk water and tear gas, sometimes fired directly at the demonstrators.

Dismantling Apartheid - Click here for more photos

Rune is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

US-made tear gas, manufactured by companies like Combined Systems Inc. (CSI), Defense Technology, and Nonlethal Technologies, continues to be used by governments including Egypt, Israel, Yemen, Bahrain and the United States to repress popular protest movements for social justice.

In response, human rights advocates will protest again on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 16th, 2012, outside CSI’s Jamestown, Pennsylvania headquarters (see pastProtests against Israel’s tear gas use). In advance of the protest, reports indicate that CSI has replaced the Israeli flag that previously flew alongside the US flag outside its headquarters with a Pennsylvania state flag.

Strong evidence that CSI canister killed Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi: On December 9, 2011, in the village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank an Israeli soldier inside an armored military jeep fired a tear gas canister at close range directly at the face of Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi during a protest against the expansion of Israeli settlements on Nabi Saleh’s land. Mustafa died from his wounds the next day. Protesters did not manage to collect the actual tear gas canister fired at him. However, residents of Nabi Saleh have collected samples of the types of tear gas canisters that the Israeli army uses against Nabi Saleh’s weekly protests, including the specific type of tear gas canister – same size and shape - that hit Mustafa. The type of canister that killed Mustafa can be seen in the January 11 and 13, 2012, photos below taken in Nabi Saleh by Bilal Tamimi. The canister has a headstamp on it that reads CTS. CTS stands for Combined Tactical Systems, a brand name of Combined Systems Inc., in Jamestown, PA. Adalah-NY received these photos from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

One piece of a tear gas canister from Nabi Saleh like the one that killed Mustafa Tamimi, headstamped CTS - January 13, 2012, photo by Bilal Tamimi.

Both pieces of a tear gas canister from Nabi Saleh like the one that killed Mustafa Tamimi, headstamped, CTS - January 11, 2012 photo by Bilal Tamimi

CSI canisters and tear gas, shot by Israeli soldiers during protests against Israel’s settlements and wall on Palestinian land, also caused the deaths of protesters Bassem and Jawaher Abu Rahmah in Bil’in, the severe injury of protester Tristan Anderson, a US citizen, in Ni’lin, as well as severe injuries to many other Palestinian protesters (more information on these protesters).

CSI is the primary supplier of tear gas to the Israeli military as well as a provider to Israel’s police (and border police). Until a January 2012 change to it’s website, CSI listed Israeli Military Industries and Rafael Armament Development Authority as among its military customers and development partners (see old webpage).  CSI’s founders, Jacob Kravel and Michael Brunn, are Israeli-Americans.

In addition to ubiquitous CSI/CTS canisters found at Palestinian protests, evidence of CSI sales and shipments to Israel is clear. An April 30, 2008, cable available through Wikileaks from the US State Department in Washington DC to the US State Department in Tel Aviv requests clearance for shipment to Israel’s police of the following equipment from CSI: 1,000 Rubber Ball Hand Grenades, 1,000 Tactical Grenades Flash Bang, 1,000 Sting-Ball Grenades, 1,000 Flash Bang Training, and 1,000 Super-Sock Bean Bags. The shipment was part of a larger $5 million agreement between the Israeli police and CSI. An Israeli government website shows that on August 4th, 2011, the Israeli police purchased 6 million shekels ($1.56 million) worth of stun grenades from CSI without issuing a tender.

The PIERS Export Database of US Trade activity is helpful in identifying CSI shipments of tear gas to a number of countries, including Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria (see further information below). However, searching PIERS does not turn up CSI shipments to Israel. The photo of a CSI container below reveals two reasons. The bottom label in the photo shows that the tear gas container was shipped via Israel’s national airline El Al, and PIERS only tracks shipments by sea. Additionally, the bottom label shows the CSI container was sent to Israel’s Ministry of Defense by Interglobal Forwarding Services, in Bayonne, New Jersey. A search on PIERS for Interglobal Forwarding Services over the past year shows over 1,300 shipments, some evidently including tear gas, by Interglobal from the US to Israel’s Ministry of Defense. But the shipments are listed under Interglobal’s name, and do not show manufacturers’ names.

The US company Defense Technology has also provided some tear gas to Israel’s police (see information on Defense Technology in the Middle East and Oakland below, and a photo of a Defense Technology tear gas container in Jerusalem below).

CSI tear gas kills and injures Egyptian protesters: CSI tear gas is also the primary tear gas that has been used by the Egyptian security forces to repress popular protests for democracy in Egypt over the last year, causing protester deaths and injuries. Amnesty International highlighted the shipment of CSI tear gas to Egypt in its December 6, 2011, call for the US government to stop sending tear gas and weapons to the Egyptian government due to tear gas-related deaths and injuries to Egyptian protesters. Using the PIERS database, Amnesty International documented three specific shipments of tear gas from CSI in the US to Egypt in 2011 that were approved by the US State Department, despite the Egyptian security forces’ record of using of tear gas to kill and injure protesters in efforts to crush protests.

As additional documentation, a July 11, 2008, cable from the State Department in Washington DC to the State Department in Cairo available through Wikileaks requests information to finalize the shipment from CSI to Egypt’s Ministry of Interior of 20,000 CS Smoke Hand Grenades, 20,000 CS Smoke Long Range Cartridge, and 4,000 CS Window Penetrating Cartridges, together valued at $621,000.

CSI in the Middle East and worldwide: CSI canisters were also seen (for example at 27 seconds in this Tunisian video) and blamed for protester deaths in Tunisia. The PIERS database reveals an April 1, 2010, CSI shipment of 5.540 kilograms of “grenade cartridges” and “ammunition launchers” to Tunisia. PIERS also shows an April 8, 2011, shipment by CSI of 12,663 kilograms of “ammunition” to Algeria. There is some evidence of use of CSI tear gas by the Yemeni government against protesters.

Other CSI customers include the Netherlands and Germany (information available via PIERS), and (via Wikileaks) Guatemala, India, Timor-Leste, Hong Kong, Argentina, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Cameroon (via Israel), and Sierra Leone.

Defense Technology in the Middle East and Oakland: A Corporate Watch report shows that the US company Defense Technology has provided tear gas to Israel’s police. Defense Technology is headquartered in Casper, Wyoming, and is owned by the UK arms giant BAE Systems. BAE Systems also owns the US arms company Armor Holdings and bought Federal Laboratories, another US company that previously provided tear gas to Israel, and other countries, and was the object of protests and lawsuits during the first intifada (See section on Past Deaths from Israeli tear gas).

Tear gas canisters with Defense Technology and Federal Laboratories have also been used by the Yemeni and Egyptian governments against pro-democracy protesters.

The city of Oakland has also used Defense Technology tear gas in its efforts to stop popular protests by Occupy Oakland. Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen, a former US marine, was seriously injured when he was struck in the head by an Oakland police projectile, very likely manufactured by Defense Technology.

US government approval of and funding of tear gas shipments: There is clear documentation, and State Department confirmation that the State Department approves sales of tear gas to foreign governments by US companies as “Direct Commercial Sales.”  A US State Department webpage shows many examples in different years of State Department regulated and approved Direct Commercial Sales by US companies of tear gas to countries like Egypt, Israel, and Bahrain. Wikileaks cables also confirm the US State Department approval process for US tear gas sales, as have a number of statements by the State Department. However, in US government records of the US’s “Foreign Military Sales” (FMS), sales of military items by the US government to other governments, use line item descriptions that are too broad to identify whether items like tear gas are being sold by the US government under FMS. Most importantly, because US military aid (“Foreign Military Financing” or FMF) is not reported transparently by the US government, it is not possible for the public to know whether or not the billions of dollars of tax dollars given as military aid to countries like Israel, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain are paying for US tear gas transferred to those countries through Direct Commercial Sales, or possibly through Foreign Military Sales.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Tear gas can ister embossed with CTS collected at Bil'in protest on December 31, 2010, the day Jawaher Abu Rahmah was overcome with tear gas. She died the next day.

Extended range tear gas canister fired at protesters in Ni'lin in 2009. CSI extended range canisters like this killed Bassem Abu Rahmah, and seriously wounded Tri stan Anderson and many other Palestinian protesters.

Tear gas canister fired at p rotesters in Bil'in in 2009, with CTS headstamp - Photo by ActiveStills.

Container for CSI tear gas canisters fired at protesters in Ni'lin in 2009. Shipping information is included on the labels.

Photo from Corpo rate Watch report - "Defense Technologies container carried by police in East Jerusalem in March 2009 - Photos courtesy of Israeli activists"'

30 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Volleys of tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition is how the Israeli Army met a small demonstration in remembrance of 2 martyrs, in Ni’lin today. Starting after Friday prayers approximately 25 Palestinians and 6 internationals made their way from the village through olive groves to the Apartheid Wall to commemorate the murder of Mohammed Khawaje and Arafat Khawaje on the 28th December 2008. Mohammed was shot in the forehead with live ammunition and Arafat was fatally shot in the back when attempting to rescue another villager who had been shot by an Israeli sniper.

Today the protest was immediately greeted with the full arsenal of the weapons available to the Israeli military. There was nearly as many heavily armed soldiers as demonstrators. A Palestinian demonstrator pleaded through a megaphone in a fog of tear gas for the soldiers to “Stay Human.”

The reply was a callous round of live ammunition fired at the demonstration. As the demo drew to a close, an armoured American-made Humvee packed with soldiers taunted the protest before a final set of shots were fired.

Ni’lin has been holding these weekly demonstrations since the Aparthied Wall was first planned. The Wall has annexed over 30% of the land of Ni’lin and has cost the lives of 5 martrys.

The protest continues weekly.

 Barbara and James are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).

3 Demember 2011 | The Electronic Intifada 

“If he had been a Palestinian, he would have gone to the Ramallah hospital and died,” Gabby Silverman said firmly.

Silverman was close enough to Tristan Anderson that she didn’t even have to shout for him to hear her when he was shot in the head by the Israeli border police.

Anderson was 37 years old when he was shot in the right corner of his forehead by a high velocity tear gas canister that broke his skull, penetrated his right eye and devastated his frontal lobe. It was 13 March 2009, and the weekly nonviolent demonstration against Israel’s wall in the West Bank village of Nilin was coming to a close.

But Anderson did not die. He was taken to a hospital in Tel Aviv where he would be treated for the next 15 months. Silverman stayed with him, keeping close watch.

Anderson and his family have filed a civil suit against the Israeli military for the injury he sustained. Evidentiary hearings for the suit were to begin in Jerusalem in late November; however, the trial was postponed due to a last-minute revelation of material evidence.

New video evidence could lead to indictment

Lea Tsemel, an Israeli human rights lawyer who is representing Anderson in his civil suit, told The Electronic Intifada that mere days before the hearing was to begin, new video evidence emerged. “The footage, found only now, shows the army in the village the day Tristan was shot,” she said. “All of us [the state and lawyers] were surprised by the new evidence and wanted to investigate it before we go forward,” said Tsemel.

Now, before proceeding with the civil case against the army, lawyers representing Anderson in the criminal court will submit the newly discovered footage to the State Attorney’s office.

“We believe that the evidence supports the immediate re-opening of the investigation, and we hope that investigation will yield enough evidence to lead to the filing of an indictment before a criminal court,” said Emily Schaeffer, a lawyer with Michael Sfard’s Law Office, who represented Anderson and his family in the separate criminal case.

For Silverman and Anderson, the trial is not about weeding out a few bad apples, but challenging a regime that has never been held accountable.

“Palestinians die at protests all the time — no one will even talk about it. But people will talk a little about Tristan,” Silverman noted.

Long-term social justice protesters

In 2000, 17-year-old Gabby Silverman had long, thick wavy hair died bright red and wore unlaced combat boots. She was in the midst of the “A16” demonstration against theInternational Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, DC when Tristan Anderson first saw her.

“I walked by you and I noticed your shoes. Shoes tell you a lot about a person,” Anderson recalled in September 2011, as sat in his wheelchair in the house he shares with Silverman in Oakland, California. We were joined by their friend Ayr. Anderson’s right hand fingered the almonds in a bowl on a table. Every so often, he brought one to his mouth and ate it.

Today, Anderson is hemiplegic, almost entirely paralyzed on his left and dominant side, and blind in his right eye.

“Everyone was wearing black, but you had bright red hair and I thought, wow, look at her,” he added. Then the crowd pushed Silverman and Anderson away in different directions.

Eight years later, Anderson would meet Silverman again — this time at the top of an old oak tree at the University of California at Berkeley in the winter of 2007. They were both involved in a long-term protest of the university’s decision to cut down a grove of ninety ancient oaks to make room for a new gym.

The tree-sit lasted until September 2008 but Anderson and Silverman remained together as a couple. In March 2009, Silverman decided to travel to Palestine. She explained that as a person of Jewish background, she has been told her entire life that the country was personally relevant to her.

“I came with the intention to get a better understanding of what was going on in Israel and Palestine; I felt like I had a responsibility,” she said.

Anderson followed Silverman to the Middle East. Anderson had spent his adult life travelling Europe and the Americas, photographing what he saw and engaging with various types of international solidarity work.

Explaining his past work, Tristan told The Electronic Intifada: “Sometimes it’s solidarity, sometimes it’s like we’ve all got to fight against something. I did everything there is to do: bicycle activism, gardening activism, anti-globalization activism, [US political prisoner] Mumia [abu Jamal] activism, tree-sitting.”

Taking his lead from Silverman, Anderson decided he, too, wanted to learn more about what was happening in Palestine. He was in Palestine for six weeks before he was injured.

Anderson’s injury

Anderson’s injury initially wiped out his short-term memory. For many months, he had no recollection of events that had occurred within a year of the incident. However, with daily, arduous rehabilitation exercises he has regained some of the lost memories.

Anderson told The Electronic Intifada with certainty that he does not remember the day he was shot.

“It’s weird to think about things you have no memory of; I’m used to going through life with memories,” he said.

But glimpses of his time in Palestine have surfaced. Anderson remembers the iconic Stars and Bucks Cafe in downtown Ramallah, Silverman’s relatives in Israel and the first day he arrived in the West Bank.

“Israel tries to make [the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip] unbearable and they’ve done that quite well,” says Tristan.

Silverman and Anderson were based in Susya in the south Hebron hills in the occupied West Bank, but would travel to Nilin every weekend to attend the demonstrations there.

Nilin is a small city near Ramallah that borders the green line, the internationally-recognized armistice line between Israel and the occupied West Bank. In 1995, after the signing of theOslo II Interim Agreement, Nilin was included in Area C, making it part of the nearly 60 percent of the West Bank which is under full civil and military control of the Israeli army. When one-third of its land was slated to be confiscated with the construction of Israel’s wall in the West Bank in 2008, the village began weekly protests.

Newly discovered video footage shows the Israeli army in Nilin village the day US activist Tristan Anderson was shot. (Oren Ziv / ActiveStills )

“I watched him fall”

Alone, Silverman spoke directly with The Electronic Intifada as she sat at her kitchen table in Oakland, cutting vegetables for a pot of soup. Anderson and their friend Ayr were in another room. Her hair is still long but now is a mix of natural golden and dark brown, and a few strands of grey.

Silverman recalled, “The demonstration was winding down at the end of the day — most of the people had left — but some were still walking around. But Tristan and I walked away from the crowd to get some air from the lingering tear gas.”

This was Silverman’s fifth and Anderson’s sixth demonstration in Nilin, but she recalled still feeling like an outsider there. “People didn’t really know us,” she explained.

They recognized a fellow international activist standing with three Palestinians in the shade and joined them.

Silverman stopped chopping to walk me through the next few moments. “Tristan had wandered off with his camera. I was looking at him. And out of nowhere, they opened fire on us. The first shot they fired, they got Tristan.

“I watched him get shot, watched him fall.”

Silverman left the kitchen for a moment and returned with two empty tear gas canisters. One is about a half-a-foot-long cylinder, metallic and hollow. The other is a black, dense sphere and felt like a small bowling ball in my hand. Anderson was shot with the latter, a new high-velocity tear gas projectile that had become known as the “bad gas.”

According to Sarit Michaeli, spokesperson for Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, this particular kind of tear gas was introduced to the West Bank in the midst of Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s attack on Gaza in the winter of 2008-09.

The canister that hit Anderson is called “extended range tear gas” and is made by the United States-based company Combined Systems, Inc, which makes “non-lethal” and “less-lethal” weapons. The company’s website recommends using the type of tear gas that hit Anderson to break barriers.

What makes this weapon particularly dangerous is that it has an internal mechanism that propels it forward, significantly increasing its impact. “It’s like firing a small missile,” Michaeli explained.

One month after Tristan was shot, the very same device would kill Bassem Abu Rahmeduring a demonstration in the nearby village Bilin.

According to eyewitness testimony collected by B’Tselem, the canister was shot directly at Anderson from a hilltop around 60 meters away. The tear gas projectile has a range of 250 meters.

Michaeli told The Electronic Intifada that the investigation conducted by Israeli police in the West Bank revealed that there were three groups of border police deployed throughout Nilin on 13 March, the day Anderson was shot. The investigation confirmed eyewitness statements given to B’Tselem — that there was indeed a group stationed on a hill approximately 60 meters away from where Anderson was standing.

However, that team of border police was never investigated.

“It was a careless investigation. It cannot be described as thorough, professional or complete,” said Schaeffer, in a statement mailed to The Electronic Intifada.

“Unfortunately the authorities’ treatment of Tristan’s case is not the exception — in my office alone we have seen literally hundreds of cases of Palestinians injured by the security forces whose investigations have also been negligent and have therefore failed to hold anyone accountable,” Schaeffer added.

According to statistics gathered by Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq, 57 Palestinians have been killed at demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the second intifada began in September 2000.

In June 2009, Akil Srour, 36, who was with Anderson at the time he was shot, was killed in Nilin when soldiers shot live-ammunition into the crowd. Srour was the fifth Palestinian to be killed in Nilin during an 18-month period.

Anderson’s recovery

For the three months after his injury, Silverman slept in the same room as Anderson as he moved from the intensive care unit to rehabilitation in a Tel Aviv hospital. Shortly after he was shot, Anderson’s parents arrived in Tel Aviv to be with their son.

Throughout the next 15 months, Anderson’s health was precarious and fluctuated wildly. The various viruses, diseases and infections Anderson picked up rolled off Silverman’s tongue like a grocery list during our interview.

“The doctors would tell me that he’s in a ‘dynamic’ state — meaning at any point he could die,” Silverman said bluntly.

She explained that initially Anderson was all but comatose. Doctors told her that they eventually hoped “for some kind of meaningful communication,” which Silverman translated to mean that he would be able to answer yes or no questions.

As Anderson gained lucidity while in the Tel Aviv hospital, the extent of the injury to his brain emerged. Typical of frontal lobe injuries, he had initially lost his short-term memory, and had a hard time learning new things. “He had to relearn how to swallow, he had developed dysphasia [impairment of the ability to communicate]. We worked for hours every day. But now he can eat anything he wants,” Silverman said.

To this day, his impulse control is compromised. Silverman said that Anderson is easily distracted by shiny cars or big advertisements, and cannot be trusted around streets.

He also does not believe that he is blind in his right eye.

“It’s very difficult to interact with someone who doesn’t respond to reason,” Silverman added.

With some caution, she said, “Luckily for us, Tristan is still continuing to improve.”

While he has recovered well beyond the hope of the initial prognosis, he requires constant assistance. These days, Anderson stays with his parents in Grass Valley, a small town in northern California, and comes down to Oakland to be with Silverman and other friends on the weekends.

“Akil was killed, Bassem is dead. The Tristan that I knew — who was my partner — who we all knew — he doesn’t exist anymore.”

Silverman added, “They [Palestinians] won’t get a big trial. That is why we have a responsibility to go through with this.”

With the new evidence, the State Attorney’s office will now decide whether to re-open the investigation, thereby opening the possibility for Anderson and his family to pursue criminal charges against the Israeli military.

Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in the West Bank. She can be reached at charlottesilver A T gmail D O T com.

3 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

After Friday’s peaceful demonstration in Ni’lin on 2 December, the Israeli military occupation forces entered the village and started following some of the demonstrators. When they caught up, they started to fire rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition.

It’s nothing unusual that they fire live ammunition here, a witness says. But this is the first time they shoot after the demonstration has finished.

Ni’lin has most of its land in area C and the separation wall is built through the actual village, though the village is situated more than 3 km away from the Green Line. Today 39.8% of the village’s total land area is confiscated. The wall also annexes land for  five Israeli settlements established on Ni’lin village’s land.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As usual, Friday’s peaceful demonstration against the wall was met with tear gas. Once the air was thick of tear gas, the demonstrators decided to finish the demonstration.

 Later the occupation forces entered the village and shot rubber bullets and live ammunition among peaceful villagers that were caught up. One man was hit by a rubber bullet and live ammunition was fired in the air and against a stone.

Jenna Bereld is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).