14 November 2009
ISM activists joined residents of Deir alGussoun today in a demonstration against the Apartheid Wall. The Wall cuts deep through the village’s land, located to the north of Tulkarem. In an extreme number of arrests, 18 Palestinian protestors were arrested by soldiers in the aftermath of the demonstration.
Meeting in Deir alGussoun this morning, approximately 50 protestors marched from the village towards the Wall, where Palestinian youth succeeded in forcing open the gates on the first of the series of three high fences comprising the Apartheid Wall in the Tulkarem area. Their efforts were met with sound bombs and tear grenades from the 3 army jeeps positioned on the other side of the fences.
The demonstration came to an end an hour later, after which demonstrators began constructing a stone road block on the dirt road leading back to the village, hoping to pre-empt a military entrance through the wall to the village following the protest. This was not enough to deter the army, as 18 youth were arrested, on charge of causing damage to the fence. None have been released as yet.
120 families of Deir alGussoun have been cut off from 2,500 dunams of land by the Wall’s construction, many of whom have never been given permission to access their land since. The Wall has been declared illegal under international law by International Court of Justice in the Hague.