Abu Michel cleans the front of his Beit Jala home after bulldozers destroyed his family's patio and playground. Anne Paq/Activestills.orgOver 150 people participated in the weekly anti-Wall demonstration organized by the local Popular Committee in Beit Jala on Sunday. The protest march, which set out towards the Wall’s construction site, was attacked with tear-gas and concussion grenades as soon as it reached a razor-wire barricade erected by soldiers on the road leading to village’s lands.
As demonstrators were forced to retreat, soldiers continued to shoot tear-gas projectiles directly towards them. Local youth responded to the attack by throwing stones and clashes ensued. Two protesters were hit by rubber-coated bullets and Muammar Awad, an freelance cameraman, was hit in the head by an aluminum tear-gas projectile shot directly at him. According to eye witnesses, Awad was evacuated unconscious to the Sheari Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem, with blood gushing out of the back of his head.
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, he 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.
According to a military confiscation order handed to the villagers, the path of the Wall will stretch over 4890 meters between Beit Jala and alWallaja, affecting 35 families, whose homes may be slated for demolition.
In the early hours of the morning on Saturday 1st May, the International Solidarity Movement’s Hebron apartment was broken into. Laptops, video cameras, photo memory cards and USB flash drives were stolen. Cash and credit cards that had been left in the apartment were not taken.
ISM activist Beatrice Smith says, “It seems likely that this was Shin Bet [the Israeli Intelligence Service]. Our neighbours have told us twice in the past week or so that soldiers have been coming up to our apartment when we’re out and they’ve been looking through the windows. If it was a normal robber, why would they have left cash and credit cards, but taken USB sticks and memory cards? This person wanted information, not money”.
Ms Smith’s argument is supported by a recent affidavit from Shin Bet to the Israeli High Court of Justice. In it, they admit that they have been keeping close surveillance on ISM activist Bridget Chappell, seemingly for the past several months.
Smith says, “It is clear from the surveillance and arrest of our activists, from the previous raids on our office in Ramallah, and now from the break-in here in Hebron that the Israeli authorities are determined to do all they can to stop us working here. They know that we’re non-violent, but they are scared because they don’t want the outside world to know what they are doing here. Anybody who comes here to bear witness to the occupation is a threat to them”.
1 May 2010Violent arrest in An Nabi Saleh. Keren Manor/Activestills.org
Israeli military violence on Palestinian land continued Friday in the village of An Nabi Saleh, where more than 100 non-violent demonstrators gathered to protest land confiscation and the ongoing apartheid. Shooting through windows, firing low-flying tear gas at protesters and arresting five, the military’s use of extreme violence has not subsided.
After gathering for speeches by local residents, Palestinian, Israeli and International demonstrators marched through the village and towards land recently confiscated by the illegal Hallamish settlement. After the initial peaceful march was dispersed by tear gas, military jeeps invaded the village. Soldiers threw percussion grenades and fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at villagers, some of whom were merely watching the demonstration from their homes. One canister, fired directly at the head of an Israeli demonstrator from a distance of 20 meters, could have proved lethal had it not narrowly missed striking him. Such tactics were responsible for fracturing the skull of Emad Rezqa last Friday in Bil’in.
The violence continued throughout the day. Four Palestinians and one Israeli were violently arrested while resting behind a house. Multiple demonstrators left the village in ambulances, including one Palestinian who received a broken hand from being struck by a tear gas canister. Village residents have also been routinely arrested in night raids. Despite such extreme measures taken by the Israeli military, the village continues to host spirited and lengthy demonstrations each Friday.
The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village residents’ olive trees by the illegal Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settlers’ attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Hallamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
Less than 24 hours after the fatal shooting of Ahmad Sliman Salem Dib, over 100 demonstrators gathered in Rafah, Gaza to protest the Buffer Zone. Marching within 100 meters of the border, the non-violent and unarmed demonstrators were faced with live fire from the beginning of the demonstration. As the march progressed, fire was aimed progressively closer and bullets were shot through a banner held by participants. One man was lightly injured in the foot.
Today’s Buffer Zone demonstration was the fourth since Friday. Live ammunition was used as a form of crowd dispersal in all four, killing Ahmad Dib yesterday. Dib, 19, was shot in the leg near Nahal Oz border crossing and died after emergency surgery from blood loss.
More than twenty rounds were fired at Monday’s demonstration in Al Faraheen, east of Khan Younis. On Friday, Palestinians Hind Al Akra (22) and Nidal Al Naji (18), and ISM activist Bianca Zammitt were shot with live ammunition in Maghazi.
Gaza Buffer Zone Background
Regular popular demonstrations are being are held in protest of the arbitrary decision by Israel to instate a 300 metre buffer zone as no-go area for Palestinians where “shoot to kill” policy is implemented. People have been shot regularly as far as 2 kilometres away from the border. Between January 20th 2009 (end of Israel’s war of aggression) and December 31st 2009, 166 Israeli attacks killed 37 persons and injured 69.
The buffer zone effects over 30% of Gaza’s farmland, and also restricts Palestinian fishermen to 3 nautical miles offshore. These restrictions severely impact the Gazan economy, with more than 675,000 (45%) now below the official poverty line and 325,000 (21%) unable to meet basic food needs.
UPDATE: Video of this action has been added below.
Demonstrators managed to disrupt the construction of the Wall in alWalaja for the second time in a week . A 15 year old demonstrator was beaten, pepper-sprayed and arrested. Demonstrators sit in front of bulldozer in Al Walaja
Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators managed to stop the construction of the Wall in the village of alWalaja, south of Jerusalem for the second time this week. If completed, the path of the Wall in the area will surround the village completely, isolating it from all its lands, the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and essentially the rest of the world.
Demonstrators managed to block the bulldozers in the early morning, and even climb and take over one of the machines. A Border Police force at the scene arrested on of the demonstrators – 15 year old Nabil Hajajla – who was beaten and pepper-sprayed. Following Hajajla’s arrest, Border Police officers managed to drag the demonstrators away from the bulldosers and construction was resumed.
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 alWallaja, 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, he 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.
