9 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Following the unusually short demonstration on the first Friday of Ramadan, the Israeli army raided the village of Nabi Saleh just before Iftar, the Muslim time for breaking fast during Ramadan, resulting in the detaining of a 14 year old boy for approximately two hours and an excessive amount of tear gas in the village.
These raids continued to happen on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, again 45 minutes before Iftar, while locals prepared to break their day long fasts. On the Sunday invasion 3 jeeps with a group of soldiers started shooting teargas without discretion, even reaching within the homes through open windows.
Manal Tamimi’s child was sleeping in the living room alone where he inhaled a large amount of tear gas for half an hour resulting in him vomiting for over an hour while the army was still in the village. Tamimi states in an interview with ISM that she was scared of the thought that she may have been outside of her home, visiting her mother, and no one would have heard the scream of her child.
Without her presence at home, she says, this invasion may have ended with a fatality within her family.
At the same time her brother, Rami Tamimi, was standing under an olive tree while the soldiers started shooting multiple rounds of rubber coated steel bullets, resulting in a broken finger and a broken arm. According to the villagers of Nabi Saleh, on Monday a large number of Israeli soldiers invaded the village firing tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets randomly at the houses.
The Popular Committee of the village states that in any case their struggle for justice and human rights will not be stopped by the repression of an army which has violently tried to suppress any form of public advocacy and peaceful resistance.