Listen to an interview with Dr. Ghassan Hamdan of the PMRS as he tries to gain acess to two families of 15 people in Nablus imprisoned and held captive by the Israeli army as they use their home for a sniper base.
Audio Interview with Dr. Ghassan Hamdan of Palestinian Medical Relief Services. – mp3 10M
Devlish May, IMEMC
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/338134.html
by an ISM Media office volunteer
On Friday the 14th of April, the villagers of Bil’in held their weekly demonstration against the apartheid wall that is de-facto annexing over half of their land to Israel. Land that the government of Israel uses to build illegal Israeli settlements on.
The Popular Committee in the village organises different creative themes that illustrate the plight of the village and the Palestinians in general. This week, they wanted to draw attention to the economic strangulation of the Palestinians by the international community after the recent Palestinian elections. Palestinians, Israelis and international demonstrators bound themselves together with iron rings, and were led along by other demonstrators bearing US, EU and UN flag symbolising the control and oppression of the Palestinians people by the international community.
When we got to the gate in the fence, the way was barred by two jeeps on the opposite side. When we approached, singing and chanting, several soldiers with clubs and riot shields emerged and stood on the jeeps threatening to beat the demonstrators over the razor wire. Several of the demonstrators soon opened the gate and started trying to move the razor wire out of the way. Soldiers swung their clubs at the demonstrators, though they were usually too far away to make contact because of the wire.
After about half an hour standing-off in this way, we started to demonstrate around the perimeter of the fence. At several points along the way, demonstrators tried to crawl through gaps in the razor wire to reach the patrol road fence and access the annexed village land. The first attempt was thwarted by a wall of soldiers, but at two other points demonstrators managed to get through before the soldiers could take action and we held sit down demonstrations on the patrol road.
The soldiers tried unsuccessfully to drive us away with beatings, but since we were already on the road, there was little they could do. They hit one Palestinian, giving him a bloody nose. After about 20 minutes, we decided to end the sit down protests and retreat back to the village side of the razor wire, one by one in a calm fashion (Palestinians leaving first to avoid arrests). Four Israelis and a Jewish American student were detained for an hour and released without charges when the demonstration had finished.
On 14th April, my second day in Palestine, I visited the small village of Beit Sira, near Ramallah.
In many other countries the inhabitants of such a village would spend today tending their farms, being with their families and friends, or popping down to the local shop. But Beit Sira has lost 70% of its land since 1948.
The nearby Kibbutz is built entirely on former village land, and more recently the settlement of Makkabim has been built on yet more village land. Now another swathe of land has been stolen to build the grotesque apartheid wall.
A well, that was crucial to the water supply of the village, is on the far side of the wall. Israel pumps the water from the well and sells it back to the Palestinian Authority. So the people of Beit Sira now have to pay 4 shekels/cubic meter for their water, whilst people in the illegal Israeli settlement of Makkabim pay just 1 1/2 shekels/cubic meter for water stolen from Beit Sira.
The village now holds a weekly demonstration to protest against the building of the wall, and I was with a group of internationals and Israelis who had come to support them. As we walked down from the village we could see the massive coils of razor wire, a wide gravel track (soon to become a ‘security road’) the other side of the wire, and beyond that the illegal Makkabim settlement.
Bizarrely the Israelis have uprooted hundreds of olive trees to build the wall, and then dug up part of the village’s existing road to replant the trees. The scheme hasn’t worked; the replanted trees are all dead.
As about 50 of us walked down the road with nothing but our cameras and water bottles we faced a line of armed police bearing riot shields and behind them some soldiers and jeeps – completely incongruous on a country lane surrounded by fields of crops and olive and almond trees.
Since the villagers started their demonstrations several weeks ago they have been threatened by the Army, to the extent that they could not even open the Community Centre for us to congregate in. The Army are clearly aiming to quash any resistance to the building of the wall and theft of the land. The villagers have already taken their case to court requesting that the wall be rerouted, but the court rejected their application.
When we reached the line of riot police we all sat down peacefully in the road in contrast to the violent intents of the armed police who faced us.
It was clear that we would not be able to go any further down the road, and after a short while the villagers declared the demonstration over and we returned to the village.
– Jody
Farmers in Salem, near Nablus, were joined on Friday the 7th of April by Israeli and international human rights workers to protect against further settler violence. Earlier in the week a 68 year-old villager was beaten by settlers and required hospitalization. Rabbis for Human Rights, members of the Kibbutzim movement, and internationals accompanied the farmers in an effort to enable the farmers to plow their land, tend to their olive trees and graze their sheep free from harm.
Fifty farmers and human rights workers took to the hills mid morning and were met almost immediately by a settler security truck. Two settlers blocked a Palestinian tractor from accessing a nearby field by parking their van on the track. The settlers were refusing to move when about five army vehicles and an Israeli police car arrived (further blocking the road and supporting the settlers). A second tractor arrived and was similarly blocked. When some villagers tried to circumvent the army and settler van in their tractor one of the settlers stood in front of it. Despite the repeated efforts of villagers and their supporters we were unable to get tractor access to the field in order to plow. The two settlers generally harrased the farmers driving through flocks of grazing sheep and continuously arguing. After a few hours (approx 1:30pm) we heard word of house occupations in Nablus and left. Some of the Israeli demonstrators were planning to stay as long as possible to observe army and settlers and help with farm work.
Adnan Ahmad Nimer, a 19 year-old activist from Beit Sira, was taken from his home last night at 2am by the Israeli military. Thirty soldiers surrounded the house, his father opened the door and the troops gathered the family into one room. They singled Adnan out, took him outside, handcuffed and blindfolded him and took him away.
Adnan has been active in the nonviolent demonstrations that occur weekly in Beit Sira to protest against the apartheid wall and the continuing annexation of Palestinian land. In the March 24th demonstration, in self defense Adnan bit a soldier’s finger as the soldier beat him to the ground. In response to the bite, soldiers attacked Adnan with clubs, breaking two front teeth.
