Category: Reports

Click here for pictures of the demonstration.

Around 1:30pm, around 300 demonstrators, including Bil’in residents, Israeli activists and internationals began marching in the direction of the construction site of the Annexation Barrier. The demonstrators were carrying mock tomb stones that read- “R.I.P. Residents of Bil’in, Cause of death: The Wall 2005”.

After about five minutes, the demonstrators approached the last houses in the village where the Israeli army had posted a warrant and a map that declared Bil’in and three other surrounding villages a closed military zone from 6am Friday until 6am Saturday. A large force of soldiers, border police and plainclothes officers were waiting for the demonstrators with a white van that houses the new Israeli army weapon, ‘the Scream’, behind barbed wire.

A number of demonstrators proceeded to lie down in the road under their tombstones while others began to remove the barbed wire. When the Israeli army turned on the Scream the demonstrators remained lying down. The military threw tear gas and sound bombs into the crowd and began arresting people. A Palestinian who was lying on the ground was hit and burned by a sound bomb. Soldiers refused to allow him to receive medical attention despite him bleeding from his leg. He was later arrested.

In addition to rubber coated steel bullets, tear gas and sound bombs, Israeli soldiers used a new weapon- a sponge cap attached to a hard plastic shell that is fired from a 40mm gun attachment and spins at high speed.

The army entered the village and Palestinian youth responded by throwing stones. Fifteen demonstrators, including a 15 year old child who was hospitalized after a gas canister was fired directly at him, were injured in the course of the demonstration from both the new and “traditional” weapons. An Israeli protester and a disabled Palestinian in wheel chair were hit by tear gas canisters and required medical treatment. Israeli army regulations prohibit direct firing of tear gas canisters at people, yet this is a common practice at non-violent demonstrations. The Israeli military spokesperson reported that three `security personnel’ were wounded by stones.

Seven demonstrators were arrested, including three Palestinians and four Israelis. One Israeli and one Palestinian were later released. The other arrested were brought to Giv’at Ze’ev police station and were accused of throwing stones (even though they were arrested before any stones were thrown). A video that was brought by Israeli activists to the police station proves that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians who were arrested threw stones. However, the police interrogators only agreed to watch the part of the video showing the Israeli arrested. They said that discussion regarding the Palestinian arrested will take place another day. Subsequently, the three Israelis who were still under arrest refused to be released and all five have been taken to prison cells where they will spend the night.

One of the arrested is Abdallah Abu Rahma, a prominent member of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements. Members of the committee have thus far been detained, arrested, beaten and threatened, and their families have been harassed in the middle of the night by Israeli security forces. The entire village has suffered from collective punishment at the hands of the Israeli army for their persistence in non-violent resistance. In a recent Ha’aretz report the army commander in the area confirmed the use of collective punishment against villages resisting the wall.

Yesterday, Tuesday 14 June, three internationals were abducted by two undercover Israeli agents on the streets of west Jerusalem in broad daylight. At approximately one PM local time, the three internationals, who have chosen to keep their identities anonymous, walked downstairs from the flat they had stayed in the night before and into the arms of the officers, who promptly surrounded them.

The agents demanded passports and cell phones, and told the internationals that they were needed at the nearby Russian Compound police station and jail for questioning. All three internationals refused, asking for warrants or any materials that could prove beyond reasonable doubt that any Israeli agents might have legitimate reason for detaining or arresting them. No reason was given. Instead, the agents told the internationals that they were only going to be detained, and that if they did not get into the unmarked car they would be arrested and dragged to the compound against their will. After a pointless argument about the nature of democracy and police action, the three internationals agreed to go with the agents.

Upon arriving at the compound—a place notorious for torture and the bloody screams that emanate from its basement—the internationals were, after a series of more pointless arguments with other Israeli agents, shuffled into a storage closet to await further direction. At this point, approximately 1:30, the internationals had not received any answers about why they were being detained, or who had issued the order for their capture. It should be noted that it is extremely rare for internationals to be arrested in the Israeli half of Jerusalem.

The internationals were left to sit in the storage closet until some of their friends arrived with their baggage and food. They were then allowed to sit outside and eat lunch. Finally, after being moved back into the storage closet, passports and cell phones still out of reach, the internationals were called, one by one, into an office with who they suspect were members of Israel’s General Security Services (GSS), the Israeli equivalent of the American FBI. While two of the internationals had overstayed their visas, the third had only been in the country for two weeks on a three month visa and was completely ‘legal’. It should also be noted that for the entire duration of their stay at the compound, amounting to four hours, the internationals persistently requested to call their lawyers and were completely ignored.

The ‘legal’ international was summoned to the office first. One of the plainclothes agents that had abducted the three was in the room, along with two other people not yet seen by the internationals. One of them had a digital camera, and though the international in question refused to have her picture taken at first, the agents made a (false) threat of arrest if she did not comply. They took perhaps 30 pictures of her. Finally, the other hitherto unknown character put a piece of paper in front of her, asking her to sign it. The paper said that she would be required to go to theimmigration police office the next morning, Wednesday, at 9 am. Signing the paper was the condition for her release from the Russian Compound. Though she initially refused, the officers told her that if she did not sign she would be kept in the jail overnight and driven to the office by the police the next morning. She signed.

The other two internationals were brought into the office, their pictures were taken and they were processed as arrested. They were then moved to the jail adjacent to the police station and kept overnight.

This morning, Wednesday, the third, ‘legal’ international appeared at the immigration police station with her lawyer. The immigration police had no idea why she had been summoned, and said they had nothing to do with it. After laughing for a few minutes with the Israeli lawyer, they said goodbye to the international and her lawyer and the international was free to go about her business as usual.

The two other internationals are awaiting deportation. One is in the process of being moved to Ramle prison, the other to Hadera prison. They have been told that they will stay perhaps one or two days in these prisons before being deported to their respective countries, the UK and the US.

The entire affair is difficult to analyze due to the nature of Israeli secrecy related to these matters. What we can be sure of is that the It seems that the Israeli police were in some way collaborating with the GSS. who were monitering the internationals According to Israeli law, the police must have a court order to tap phones, whereas the GSS does not. There seeme to be no other conceivable explanation for the presence of the two undercover agents outside the flat in west Jerusalem. They had been waiting and knew exactly where the internationals were. The ‘legal’ international has been working and living in East Jerusalem, doing research for the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) through a grant provided by the Human Rights Project at her college in the United States. She had never been arrested or detained by any Israeli ‘security’ forces before yesterday. Though her lawyer urged her to sue the state for detainment without cause and personal damages, she has declined due to lack of funds.

The army declared the area a closed military zone in the morning, warning the villagers not to get close to the path, and put up a checkpoint on the main road to the village, not letting any cars in.

About 200 Palestinians took part in the demonstration, including many children and some women. There were 5 Israelis and one international present.

Ramadin had some land stolen from the village in ’48 where Kibutz Lahav now sits, and a very close by settlement, Eshkolot, is also sitting on their land. The path of the wall is going to surround the south of Ramadin and take more of their land now.

The demonstration started towards the path, with at least 70 soldiers present. The villagers held a prayer on the land for about an hour, and then started to get closer to the path, beyond a line of stones the army decided was their non-crossing point. The soldiers then approached and after “negotiation” with the head of the village, the village decided to end the demonstration without a confrontation with the army and return to the village.

Curfew was imposed on the village of Marda at 5:30 AM, and the entire area of Marda, Iskaka, and Salfit was declared a closed military zone. The Civil Administration informed Israeli activist Laiser Peles from Tel Aviv, who protested the curfew, that the village was being punished because some residents had thrown stones. Soldiers and border police repeatedly entered the village from 5.30 AM onward, throwing sound bombs and firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition into the air and into a home, breaking its window. Approximately 20 Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation, among them a Red Crescent ambulance worker who was injured when a tear gas canister was fired at an ambulance. In addition, a 25-year-old Palestinian was arrested.

Two days ago the military dispatched hundreds of soldiers in the area and fired approximately 200 canisters of tear gas in two hours to prevent protestors from coming near the site of their uprooted trees. One farmer was taken to Rafidiya hospital and two Red Crescent ambulances treated 20 Palestinians.

Today Thursday June 9 a hundred people began to march in the direction of the construction site of the Annexation Barrier Wall in Salfit. They were still at the outskirts of the village when the Israeli military fired large amounts of tear gas and sound bombs at them. Soldiers arrived and announced the area a “Closed Military Zone.” When Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak responded that the area was “An Open Palestinian Zone,” he was arrested. Five Palestinians required medical treatment for tear gas inhalation and three Palestinians were beaten until they lost consciousness. They were taken to the hospital by Red Crescent ambulances. In addition, one international and one elderly Israeli activist have been arrested. If the Wall is completed as planned, the town of Salfit will lose 6,500 dunums (1625 acres), more than 25% of its land.

Tomorrow, Friday June 10th, villagers and supporters will meet at 10:30 am in the center of Marda to walk to the land where their olive trees are being uprooted. The farmers of Marda will attempt to hold prayer service on their land. Marda has seen at least 1000 trees cut and an unknown number uprooted in the past week to make way for the Ariel loop of the Annexation Wall, 20 kilometers (12.2 miles) east of the Green Line.