At yesterday’s demonstration, a number of Bil’in’s citizens as well as a local journalist were wounded, in addition to the dozens of people who suffered choking from inhaling poison gas.
These events come during a week of international solidarity with the Palestinian people as well as the occasion of Christmas. The demonstration, organized by the Popular Committee Against the Wall and settlement of Bil’in, began after Friday prayers from the centre of the village and marched towards the Apartheid Wall where the soldiers were already waiting. Dozens of international activists and Israelis marched alongside the people of Bil’in with a number of protesters dressed in Santa Claus outfits shaking bells and distributing sweets as they marched. Participants chanted slogans calling for national unity and the ending of the occupation, as well as the destruction of the wall. They raised Palestinian flags and banners of the various factions and slogans calling for the liberation and national unity.
On reaching the wall, the protesters were met with a shower of tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets. A villager, Hamde Abu Rahma, was hit several times by tear gas canisters fired at his legs and back, while Tariq al-Khatib KISS was overcome by gas thrown in his face. The soldiers advanced towards the village, creating a bottleneck which trapped dozens of participants who were bombarded with the poison gas. The protesters were forced to retreat to just outside the village where they continued confrontation with the Israeli soldiers for hours.
24 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement
Three days before the first anniversary of the weekly demonstration held in An Nabi Saleh, on December the 22nd, Israeli forces arrested 23-year-old Bahaa Tamimi, a member of the community. He will face a trial in an Israeli Military court within the following week. The military has been searching for him for the past few weeks, frequently entering the village and asking for him. He was on his way to his work in Ramallah in the morning, when he was stopped by an apparently private car. Police asked for his ID and arrested him.
In December 2009, the village started to hold a weekly demonstration as their answer to the Israeli occupation. One year has passed since that first peaceful demonstration, and the Israeli army still responds with excessive violence. Ever since then, the village has been subject to severe repercussion – night raids, demolition orders and arrests. More than fifty members of the community have been arrested since the beginning of the demonstrations. A big part of the village youth has served some time in jail, convicted on dubious charges and released (often after several weeks or months imprisoned) without any charges held against them.
This latest arrest of Bahaa Tamimi is continuing the Israeli policy of random youth arrests, serving as a tool to intimidate and threaten Palestinian families. Oftentimes their only offense is being young, male, and Palestinian. After the imprisonment of a family member, the whole life of the family revolves around this incident: affording money in order to pay for the court, the long process to be granted a permission to visit, the procedures of going through on such a rare visit. For the youth, future prospects – such as education, the chances to be granted a working permit, visas – are often smashed.
23 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement
Tuesday, Israeli authorities demolished a Palestinian home in Ras al Ahmud, East Jerusalem. ISM activists interviewed family members left homeless by the senseless demolition.
On December 19, 2010, Israeli soldiers entered the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al Ahmud and left a demolition notice on the window of a Palestinian home. The families inside were faced with a wrenching decision: demolish their own home and pay a fine of 60,000 shekels or refuse and watch as soldiers demolish their house and punish them with a fine of 120,000 shekels. Soldiers showed up outside with a bulldozer. Finally, on December 21, they tore down their own house.
“It felt so bad to take the house down. To even think for one minute that we wouldn’t have a home – what do you do? My father bought this land over 40 years ago,” explained Rami.
Three families lived in the house, a total of 13 people, including 4 small children.
The Red Cross donated tents and some supplies to the family. Later, a representative from the UN visited the site.
\On Thursday, the families were living in two white tents and a makeshift shelter. Two days had passed since the demolition. A heap of metal and the frame of the roof lay on the dusty ground where their house once stood. Off to one side, stacks of their possessions were exposed to the elements – boxes of clothes, drinking glasses, a refrigerator. Some doors and wood paneling were leaning against a fence.
“A big problem now is the bathroom,” said Rami, “We don’t know how we will pay the 60,000 shekels. We are sleeping here in these tents and we don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Just this week in East Jerusalem, demolitions in Nu’man Village, Sur Baher, and Ath Thuri have left 11 other Palestinians homeless.
Please join the people of Al-Walaja for their weekly demonstration this Friday morning: December 24, 2010 at 9 a.m.
A resident of al-Walaja is attacked with pepper spray for confronting Israeli bulldozers.
Despite an ongoing trial in the Israeli high court over the legality of the placement of the Separation wall in al-Walaja, a small village just outside of Jerusalem, Israel doubled construction efforts this afternoon. Around 2pm bulldozers accompanied by armed guards started clearing trees, rocks, and shrubs. Three days ago, Israeli authorities marked the wall route with orange plastic straps which including a route which will swallow a natural spring and a Palestinian grave yard. Last August, a group of villagers, members of the Israeli nature preservation society and even settlers brought a case before the Israeli high court demanding that the route of the wall be changed. The court said that it would take time to deliberate the case and deliver a final verdict in January. The court, however, did not issue a stop work order on construction of the wall. Israeli authorities are now taking advantage of this loophole by doubling work on the construction of the wall in order to create facts on the ground.
This afternoon, villagers and international supporters walked towards the active bulldozers and tried to stop their work non-violently. They were prevented from reaching the bulldozers by armed Israeli soldiers, border police, and riot police. Despite the violent show of force, villagers argued that Israel had no right to destroy their land and cited the ongoing High Court legal case. At one point, an IDF commander recognized Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh from an earlier demonstration which took place in the summer. Qumsiyeh was standing in a group of people when he was suddenly arrested without the slightest warning or provocation. The army then started to violently push the crowd into the village, causing several villagers to fall on the rocky, uneven ground and sustain minor injuries. As the outnumbered villagers were being pushed further and further away from the construction zone, a commander suddenly ran into the crowd and randomly detained several Palestinians who – at that point – had their backs turned to the soldiers and were facing towards the village.
In total, eight Palestinians – one woman and seven men including teenagers and an elderly men, were detained. Three were handcuffed; five were bound with plastic zip ties which resulted in minor injuries due to the tightness of the plastic. Three of those detained continued to take abuse from the soldiers even after their arrest.
Background
Al-Walaja is an agrarian village of about 2,000 people, located south of Jerusalem and West of Bethlehem. Following the 1967 Occupation of the West Bank and the redrawing of the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, roughly half the village was annexed by Israel and included in the Jerusalem municipal area. The village’s residents, however did not receive Israeli residency or citizenship, and are considered illegal in their own homes.
Once completed, the path of the Wall is designed to encircle the village’s built-up area entirely, separating the residents from both Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and almost all their lands – roughly 5,000 dunams. Previously, Israeli authorities have already confiscated approximately half of the village’s lands for the building of the Har Gilo and Gilo settlements, and closed off areas to the south and west of it. The town’s inhabitants have also experienced the cutting down of fruit orchards and house demolition due to the absence of building permits in Area C.
According to a military confiscation order handed to the villagers, the path of the Wall will stretch over 4890 meters between Beit Jala and al-Wallaja, affecting 35 families, whose homes may be slated for demolition.
Beit Jala is a predominantly Christian town located 10 km south of Jerusalem, on the western side of the Hebron road, opposite Bethlehem. Once completed, the Wall will Isolate 3,200 Dunams of the town’s lands, including almost 3,000 Dunams of olive groves and the only recreational forest in the area, the Cremisan monastery and the Cremisan Cellars winery.
On Saturday, December 18th, 2010, a larger than usual number of Israeli and international activists joined Beit Ommar villagers in their demonstration against the continuing encroachment of Karmei Tsur settlers on land belonging to local farmers. Approximately 80 people took part in the high-spirited demonstration, which was accompanied by a group of Israeli drummers. Demonstrators also waved the flags of the various countries that have recognized Palestine’s right to self-determination in the last few weeks.
As the demonstration was starting, a group of ten Israeli soldiers occupied the house of a local family at the southern edge of the village. The terrified family of five was forced into a separate room while the soldiers used their house as a vantage point from which to observe the demonstrators. The soldiers remained in the residence for a total of three hours.
As the protesters approached the fence around the settlement of Karmei Tsur, they were confronted by an additional group of Israeli soldiers and border police. Soldiers repressed the unarmed demonstration with tear gas and stun bomb. One soldier injured themselves while trying to throw a sound bomb. Several high-velocity tear gas canisters, deemed illegal by the Israeli military’s own protocol, were fired at the heads of the demonstrators. One Italian international and one Israeli solidarity activist were arrested by Israeli Forces.
At yesterday’s demonstration, a number of Bil’in’s citizens as well as a local journalist were wounded, in addition to the dozens of people who suffered choking from inhaling poison gas.
On reaching the wall, the protesters were met with a shower of tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets. A villager, Hamde Abu Rahma, was hit several times by tear gas canisters fired at his legs and back, while Tariq al-Khatib KISS was overcome by gas thrown in his face. The soldiers advanced towards the village, creating a bottleneck which trapped dozens of participants who were bombarded with the poison gas. The protesters were forced to retreat to just outside the village where they continued confrontation with the Israeli soldiers for hours.
