Al Walaja, Beit Jala protest illegal wall construction

International Solidarity Movement

25 May 2010

Al Walaja

Al Walaja village, close to Bethlehem, faces the threat of being totally isolated from the surrounding countryside by an apartheid wall which is currently under construction. When it is finished the only access villagers will have to the outside world is through a tunnel which can be opened or closed at the whim of the Israeli authorities. This nightmarish prospect is being protested each Sunday by the villagers, supported by Israeli and international sympathisers.

This Sunday, 23 May, approximately 70 protesters attempted to march from the village to the site of the wall’s construction. Before they could reach their objective they were met by a squad of a dozen border police who ordered them to disperse. They chose instead to sit in the roadway, where they were addressed in English and Arabic by a resistance leader, who emphasised the justness of their cause.

On this Sunday the Israeli troops did not resort to the use of tear gas or other violent methods of crowd control. Unfortunately for them, they were standing upwind of the demonstrators and ran the risk of gassing themselves rather than their prospective victims. One of them, “The big Russian with the red hair” – as he was described to me by a nearby Israeli journalist – appeared anxious to wreak some havoc. One of his companions, by contrast, seemed to indicate by his body language that he wished he could have been somewhere else.

Finally, the need to be somewhere else motivated the protesters to peacefully disperse. The only casualty of the day was the magnificent landscape as the bulldozers continued to rip apart the earth for Al Walaja’s unwanted and illegal prison wall.

Beit Jala

Beit Jala’s weekly demonstration against the illegal apartheid wall also took place this Sunday. Despite having to clamber down a precipitous terraced hillside to reach the site, a group of committed activists managed to seat themselves in the path of the leading bulldozer. By clinging determinedly to one another they managed to resist being dragged away into detention for upwards of an hour. They hung on even when the operator of the bulldozer put their lives at risk when he resumed excavating within a metre of them.

The exasperation of the troops at failing to remove the demonstrators
found its expression in detonating percussion grenades and throwing tear gas canisters amongst the assembled journalists and photographers. Nevertheless, the most determined of them managed to hang in and record the event until the last demonstrator had been arrested, handcuffed and carried to the waiting police vehicle.

The six activists- all Israeli nationals- who were arrested were
released the same day. The final act of violence by the Israeli
military was to enter the village and tear gas a group of
Palestinian children who had taken no part in the demonstration. I
suppose it helped to relieve their frustrations.