Ma’asara : Good Friday demo against the wall
from Anarchists Against the Wall, 6 April 2007
UPDATE: Video can be seen by clicking HERE
The struggle against the apartheid wall in villages south of bethlehem took a step forward today, when the regular “Friday demo” was replaced by a direct action against the bulldozers that works on Israel’s Apartheid wall.
Some forty demonstrators gathered together in the village of Wadi Nis, near Umm Salamuna, inspired by the work of the great surrealist artist Muhammad Khatib of Bilin. The demonstrators carried a huge cross to observe “Good Friday,” the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus.
Demonstrators marched to the path of the wall where they blocked a working Israeli bulldozer, destroying Palestinian land in the path of the Apartheid Wall Israeli is constructing. The demolition was stopped for an hour until a force of “MAGAV”(border police) issued the usual excuse of “close military zone”.
After the demonstrators refused to leave the site of destruction, the police force attacked the demonstrators injuring one of them and detaining three others .
Mahmoud Zawahari, from nearby Umm Salamuna, said, “the soldiers beat me in my teeth because we refused to move. The soldiers kept trying to throw down the cross. But the cross was our flag for the demo, and we would not let it go down!”
After a short negotiation with the police, three people detained were released, and the demonstrators walked back to the village promising to repeat a similar actions on a regular basis.