29 December 2009
Israeli Occupation Forces arrested two village youth from the small West Bank village of Bil’in early Tuesday morning during a night raid operation there around 2:30 am.
Lookouts with the Bil’in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements spotted Israeli soldiers near the Southwest gates of the town as well as in the Western groves of olive trees around 1am Tuesday morning and quickly mobilized the rest of the night patrol team.
“We do not have enough people to try and stop them tonight, David,” Haitham Al-Katib, the Media Coordinator for Friends of Freedom and Justice Bil’in, told me. “Tonight you are not an activist, ok? Tonight you are a photographer. We will show the world the truth about what is happening here.”
Hamoda Iymad Yassen and Khalil Abraham Yassen, 16, were arrested at their homes around 2:30am Tuesday morning.
More than 30 Bil’in residents have been arrested since June during a night-raid campaign conducted by apartheid state security forces in an apparent attempt to disrupt the nonviolent resistance activities of the Bil’in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements.
The Bil’in Popular Committee organizes weekly demonstrations at the Apartheid Wall near their village to protest the annexation of more than 60 percent of their land to Israel.
More photographs available at: From Pork to Palestine Blog