Hundreds of pro-settlement Israelis have flocked to the area around Jenin to protest the dismantling of four small settlements scheduled to be part of Israel’s disengagement plan for the northern part of the West Bank. Not exactly what you’d call a peaceful demonstration.
The group, numbering in the hundreds are flocking to settlements that have been mostly empty or home to small groups of people. Sanur, previous to this week, had a population of a little more than a dozen people. Now that it has been added to Sharon’s dismantlement list, there are reportedly about 450.
About 150 others have pitched tents to camp out near the small Palestinian village of Suweitat and have taken to throwing stones at villagers and stopping a family from holding a funeral at the village cemetery. At least one Palestinian has reportedly been kidnapped by the group. Israeli police were called in and after negotiating with the pro-settlement group for three hours, were able to free the Palestinian and get him back home.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan mostly focuses on settlements and the military presence in Gaza. However, four small settlements in the West Bank near Jenin (Ganim, Kadim, Homesh and Sanur) along with a nearby military camp are scheduled to be removed as well.
Long ignored by most, Israeli’s anger over Sharon’s plan has sent people in support of these often ghost town-like settlements scurrying out to the occupied territories in order to keep a foothold for what they see as an eventual expansion of “Greater Israel.”
“Masses of people will come,” pro-setttler spokesman Yossi Dagan said in in one report on the situation. “People are already familiar with the routes. When there will be tens of thousands of people here it would be impossible to deport them forcefully…. The prime minister will fail here. The Jewish people will come and prevent it.”
Meanwhile, roads in and out of Jenin have been shut by checkpoints, keeping many Palestinians there from being able to get to jobs, schools or to their family’s homes.
These four tiny settlements have as much legal standing as the ones in Gaza. However, Ariel settlement and all the others scattered around the West Bank also lack the legal standing to exist and are only in place because an Israeli military force keeps them there.
These token steps, taken in the West Bank are meant to distract from the massive land grab currently under way. While a few hundred supporters of “Greater Israel” work to keep in place what are essentially some squatter trailer parks, the thousands of Israelis living illegally on Palestinian land in the permanent colonial structures don’t seem to be in too much worry about having to pack their bags.
A woman who showed up in her military uniform along with protesters in Bil’in was quickly arrested by soldiers and transferred to IDF investigators for questioning. About 100 or so peace activsits carried their own version of Israeli’s annexation wall that is being built through villages like Bil’in. Soldiers detained more than 30 Israeli and foreign demonstrators. Two Israelis were arrested.
The soldier was taken to IDF investigators to be questioned. Her identity is not known, but an Israeli activist who is friends with her said she had been drafted one month ago and had questions about Israeli’s tactics of enforcing the occupation. While the protest neared the area of the village which was blocked by soldiers, she approached them to talk about what they were doing there. She was quickly whisked away.
Friday is Bil’in’s day of peaceful but direct protest against Israel’s illegal wall, which is being built though the village, cutting off locals from 60 percent of their land.
Palestinians, Israeli and International activists filled the streets in this West Bank village. At the front of the procession was an effigy of a crucified Palestinian on a fence. The fence represented the Wall, and the form of the Palestinian hung on it represented the suffering of Palestinians because of the Wall. Signs posted on the fence said that the Wall is a tool of death, and another two signs that said you take our land, you take our lives.
When the demonstration reached the wall of soldiers it stopped. After about ten minutes of chanting everyone took a side road to reach the site of the wall construction. At this point, the Israeli soldiers were caught off guard. Tear gas was fired and sound grenades exploded. A group of Israeli activists were separated and detained.
Internationals formed a line, locked arms and sat down in classic nonviolence civil disobedience. The soldiers tore people away. In all, 10 internationals were detained and 24 Israelis, 2 of which were arrested. The protest meanwhile went on and escalated to rubber bullets aimed at children throwing stones. Eventually the detained activists were released.
The United Nations’ International Court of Justice issued a ruling, though a nonbinding one, in 2004 saying the annexation barrier which zigzags around the West Bank is illegal and should be torn down.
At the demonstration, Palestinian activists handed out a statement to reporters and photographers who had made the trip to Bil’in to see what the situation was:
Help keep our village from becoming a prison
Dear media representative,
First, thanks for coming to our village. We like it here, and we want you to see what it is we’re trying to defend. We hope you take a look around and get to know the place and people here, and see that there’s something here worth saving. We want as many people as possible to see what’s being done to our land with their own eyes, so they can make their own conclusions about what’s going on.
If Israel is allowed to continue building its illegal annexation barrier on our land, it will mean death of Palestinian identity, security and any chance for sovereignty. It will mean the slow painful demise of our village. That’s the message of our weekly demonstrations.
Today we wear black, because it is the color of mourning. We feel like we are on a funeral march for ourselves.
Bil’in is being strangled by the Wall. Our village sits two and a 1/2 miles east of the Green Line, yet Israel’s Wall and settlements will take more than 60 percent of our land. This land is also money to us. Bil’in’s 1,600 residents depend on farming and harvesting olive trees for our livelihood. The Wall will turn Bil’in into a prison. It will further curtail the limited freedoms we now have.
We are not asking you for much. Just give us a chance to get this side of the story out. If this wall is for security, why is it being built so far from internationally recognized borders? Why is Israel creating so much animosity if it really is seeking safety? The reality of the situation is that this is a land grab. And in the process, it is killing us. We rely on you to get our message to the outside world. Pretty soon we won’t be able to. Pretty soon, we’ll be in a prison.
— Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours … Everything we don’t grab will go to them.” — Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the Tsomet Party, November 15, 1998
This morning, ten Palestinians were injured when soldiers opened fire
in Liban Al-Gharbi, near Rantis – 15 km south of Qalqilya. The
conflict began six days ago, when a group of 25 settlers and soldiers
brought heavy machinery onto a piece of land that belongs to the
village. They began digging and excavating the land, claiming to be in search of archeological ruins.
On several occasions in the last week, the settlers have also come into the village to harass and threaten the Palestinians. Each day, the Palestinians have gone down to the occupied land to talk to the settlers – insisting that the land belongs to the village and that the settlers do not have the right the work there.
This morning, when the Palestinians confronted the settlers, the situation escalated into a fight, with settlers and villagers throwing rocks at one another. Israeli soldiers then opened fire on the villagers with rubber coated metal bullets – injuring ten Palestinians. Seven of the injured have been transferred to Ramallah Hospital; two are in serious condition. Bajis, 33, was shot twice in his left leg from a distance of less than 5 meters. Munthir, 40, was shot in the forehead and in the left shoulder. The other villagers were treated and released.
The soldiers, settlers were ordered by the Israeli military to vacate the area this morning, however, the order is only one week and villagers fear that they will return. It was not stated exactly what the intent of the archeological work was or what ruins settlers were supposedly in search of.
Soldiers set up a “flying checkpoint” outside Ramallah, near the village of Surda on Sunday.
By Sarita and Andrew
Ambulances, commerce, people traveling to work or heading home were all brought to a halt Sunday in Ramallah as Israeli soldiers closed all exit and entry points to the city following a shooting by Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade members in which a 10-year-old Israeli boy from the nearby Ateret settlement was injured.
As the boy lay in stable condition after being rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, two ambulances carrying sick Palestians to a nearby hospital were forced to sit for three and a half hours at a checkpoint in the West Bank village of Atara along with hundreds of other commuters. International Solidarity Movement volunteers went to monitor the checkpoints at Atara and Surda.
Flying Checkpoint in Surda
At approximately 10:30 this morning, the Israeli military closed the Atara checkpoint. A flying checkpoint was placed at Surda, 10km from Atara towards Ramallah. Ten ISM activists arrived at Surda Checkpoint around 1:00pm and began monitoring the Israeli soldiers blocking the road with 2 jeeps. The army was letting some cars as well as women, children and the elderly go through, but Palestinian men between the ages of 18-35 were being stopped and had to show their ID.
Surda Checkpoint
ISM divided into 2 groups, and sent one to monitor Atara Checkpoint with the 3 International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) activists and the other remained at Surda.
A soldier at the flying checkpoint approached the ISM activists, to explain (in the little english that he knew) that they were searching for the “terrorist” that had attacked and shot settlers near Jerusalem. He wanted to let the ISM volunteers through the checkpoint, but they explained that they had come to observe him and the army’s actions, and that they wouldn’t leave until the checkpoint was lifted.
Surda checkpoint
During the time ISM was filming and taking photographs, movement through the checkpoint almost came to a complete halt as the soldiers tightened control. One soldier driving a jeep, aggressively raced up to a UN vehicle waiting in line as if he was going to smash into the car. He got out of the jeep, yelling and brandishing his M-16. He then took position in the middle of the road and began harassing the men waiting to have their IDs checked. The commanding army officer eventually ordered him to return to his jeep as media arrived on site.
A bus full of children between the ages of 4 and 12, who were travelling to Ramallah to present a theatre performance, were stopped for over 2 hours. Stefanie and Marie-Eve, ISM activists from France and Canada, managed to convince the commanding officer to let the bus through.
Surda Checkpoint
At around 2:00 p.m., the soldiers suddenly lifted the checkpoint and the army vehicles raced behind the hill. The hundreds of people and cars that had been waiting patiently flooded the road. The sounds of hurried movement filled the landscape and the trace of soldiers was erased by the loud honking and bustle.
Atara checkpoint
Atara Checkpoint
As traffic flowed at a snail’s pace at the temporary checkpoint in Surda, The permanent checkpoint at Atara was blocked for three and a half hours by soldiers in checkpoint structures, jeeps and sniper posts.
Members of IWPS and ISM attempted to talk to soldiers about the reason for the road closures and to seek permission for the ambulances carrying sick passengers to pass. Their requests were rebuffed. No arrests or vehicle checks were made at the roadblock. Soldiers were not searching anyone or allowing anyone to approach to ask them for information as to how long they should expect to wait.
As the group of international observers asked again if the roadblock would soon open, or if the ambulances could pass, the guards received instructions to allow traffic to move. Leaving a small contingent of soldiers at the posts in the permanent checkpoint, most of the soldiers promptly jumped into their jeeps and sped off. Nearly 200 vehicles, including a number of packed busses, had been detained under the hot sun for nearly four hours.
The inequity that Palestinians face when compared to the amount of security and safety Israelis are afforded is obvious in every facet of life in occupied Palestinian lands.
Settler attacks on Palestinian villagers often go unreported or investigated. While shooting at settlers can bring all of Ramallah to a halt, often there is little to no protection for the Palestinian population inside Israeli borders, in the West Bank or Gaza.
As Israeli and U.S. officials continually bombard Palestinian authorities to go after militant groups, little is being done to curtail attacks carried out by settlers. No security was in place to keep the 19-year-old settler off the bus in the middle of a Palestinian community inside Israel’s borders where he killed 4 people and injured 12 others with an army issued rifle — in an act of what he considered to be in defense of the settlements. None of the settler-only roads that wind through Palestinian territories were closed off for hours after the incident.
In fact, Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the killing of Palestinian bus riders was an “isolated incident” that was “a far cry from when you have on occasion one or two isolated incidents of this sort than when you have a whole society which is beset by terrorists.”
Also, none of the violence and human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians are taken into account.
According to weekly figures by the Palestinian Center For Human Rights, acts against Palestinian civilians have recently been on the rise. The organization reports that, between July 28 and August 3, Israeli forces sraeli Occupation Forces killed a Palestinian civilian in Shoufa village, south of Tulkarm. Ten Palestinian civilians were injured in attacks by militant settlers in that time. Add to that the amount of violent force used against peaceful demonstrations organized by Palestinian civilians, the economic ruin brought about during that time by the expansion of Israel’s illegal annexation wall, and the notion of who actually is “beset by terrorists” should become more and more clear.
Statistics: www.pchrgaza.org Background on speicific incidents: www.haaretzdaily.com
Carrying a 20-foot long mock snake with a dove baring the colors of the Palestinian flag in its mouth, about 100 Palestinian peace activists in the West Bank village of Bil’in on Friday were joined by 50 Israelis and 30 internationals in a march toward the construction site of Israel’s illegal annexation wall. The display represented how is snaking through Palestinian land, killing the possibilities for peace.
While Israeli soldiers attempted to turn the situation into chaos with tear gas and sound grenades, peace activists were able to maintain two lines, with their arms locked, and walk toward the soldiers until they retreated back as television cameras from Aljzaeera and other news agencies recorded footage. Soldiers injured some protesters with shrapnel from sound grenades. Others were kicked or punched by soldiers. 13 Israeli activists were detained. Four people were arrested, two Israelis and two foreign peace activists.
Friday demonstrations in Bil’in’ begin at 1 p.m. on the dot. The Aug. 5 wall protest was no exception. As the demonstration neared the last house in the village, Israeli soldiers were prepared, standing with shields and riot gear behind razor wire. They immediately declared the area a closed military zone. Palestinians shouted back “This is Palestinian territory!” and continued chanting, singing and dancing for about half an hour.
As some of the protestors continued chanting, the Israeli military started to move toward the demonstrators, firing tear gas and throwing sound grenades into the crowd. Israeli soldiers then pushed the demonstration back toward the village.
A peace activist from India was knocked down and kicked in the head. He said later that the soldiers had talked to him as though they thought he was a Palestinian. Another man — an actual Palestinian — was injured in his leg by shrapnel from one of the sound grenades tossed into the crowd by soldiers. Of the four arrested, the two internationals, one from Germany and the other from Denmark were released hours later. Two Israelis are still under arrest and accused of assault. One soldier has claimed that one of the Israeli peace activists “bit” him.
The demonstrators reformed into clear lines and linked arms and were beaten with shields by the Israeli military. Palestinians were specifically targeted with brutal force. Despite the large number of Israeli soldiers, the demonstration was able to eacefully stand its ground and move the soldiers back to the original stand-off point.
