Tag: 0.22 bullets - Page 3 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian moderately hurt in Naalin

4 December 2009

Evacuating the injured Palestinians Friday (Photo: Activestills)

A 20-year-old Palestinian protestor was moderately injured from a bullet fired by the security forces during a rally against the separation fence in the West Bank village of Naalin, Palestinian sources reported Friday.

An Israel Defense Forces official said the man was lightly wounded after being hit in the lower part of his body by a bullet fired from a Ruger rifle, which is used as a crowd dispersal mean. One of the protesters, Yonatan Polk, said he was standing next to the demonstrator that was shot.

“The guy was standing between 50 and 70 meters away from the soldiers, with two barbed-wire fences between them,” he said.

“Both he and the soldiers were standing behind cement blocks, meaning any arguments of their lives being in danger are far from reality. He was hit by a live bullet near his crotch. It’s a policy of using these means in order to create tension and nothing more,” he added.

Dozens of Palestinians, left-wing activists and foreigners took part in the weekly anti-fence demonstrations in the villages of Bilin and Naalin. Some 150 people protested in Naalin and about 80 in Bilin.

According to the IDF, the protestors rioted and hurled stones at the security forces, who responded with tear gas and crowd dispersal means.

Later Friday, the IDF reported that two Molotov cocktails were hurled at Border Guard vehicles in Naalin. There were no reports of damage or injury.

Efrat Weiss, Roee Nahmias and Anat Shalev contributed to this report

Army renews use of live ammunition against demonstrators

B’Tselem

26 November 2009

On Friday, 13 November, soldiers were documented firing 22-caliber bullets at demonstrators during the weekly demonstration against the Separation Barrier in Ni’lin. The shots were fired a few dozen meters from the targets, and lightly wounded two demonstrators. The IDF Spokesperson’s Office confirmed that 22-caliber bullets had indeed been fired.

The following Friday, 20 November, soldiers again fired live ammunition at the demonstrators, causing moderate injuries to one and lightly injuring another.

In 2001, the then judge advocate general, Major General Menachem Finkelstein, prohibited the use of 22-caliber bullets to disperse demonstrators. In early 2009, however, the army resumed its use against demonstrators in the West Bank. B’Tselem protested the action. In reply, Judge Advocate General Major General Avichai Mandelblit reiterated that the IDF does not classify the Ruger rifle, which fires 22-caliber bullets, and similar weapons, as means to disperse demonstrations or public disturbances, and that the rules governing their use in Judea and Samaria are stringent, comparable to the rules for opening fire and use of live ammunition.

Since then, the army has resumed use of 22-caliber bullets, killing at least two Palestinians in the West Bank, and wounding dozens, some of them severely. In February of this year, ‘Az a-Din al-Jamal, 14, who was throwing stones with other youths, was killed. In June, a border policeman shot ‘Aqel Srur, 35, in the chest at a demonstration in Ni’lin, killing him. Following that, the army ceased using the ammunition, until 13 November.

Real-time observations by B’Tselem and video footage filmed at two demonstrations indicate that the gunfire was completely contrary to army orders. There was no justification to use lethal weapons in these incidents. Persons from the village were indeed throwing stones at security forces on the other side of the fence, but from a few dozen meters away. The security forces found cover behind concrete blocks or inside shielded jeeps, so they were not in a life-threatening situation. The security forces had other means, which cause much lesser harm, that they could easily have used to distance demonstrators from the fence, among them tear gas and an odorous liquid sprayed at demonstrators from a tanker.

Following the firing of the 22-caliber ammunition at demonstrators on 13 November, B’Tselem wrote to the judge advocate general, demanding an investigation into the incident, and direction of commanders whose soldiers engage in dispersing demonstrations to again clarify to their troops the rules for using live ammunition during demonstrations. B’Tselem demands that the army immediately stop using 22-caliber ammunition in circumstances in which soldiers’ lives are not in danger, and that measures be taken against security forces who fired live ammunition in violation of regulations and caused the death and injury of civilians.

Gate forced open in Ni’lin’s separation barrier – eight demonstrators wounded and one arrested

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

28 November 2009

For immediate release:

This morning, a group of demonstrators in the West Bank village of Ni’lin managed to surprise the Israeli army and, using bolt cutters, cut open one of the gates in the fence built on the village’s lands. Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene and fired rubber-coated steel bullets as well as tear gas canisters at the demonstrators, followed by the use of live ammunition.

Eight people were wounded during the action. Seven demonstrators were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets, and a one and a half year-old baby was evacuated to a Ramallah hospital suffering from tear gas inhalation, caused by soldiers firing a tear gas canister into her house.

Today marks the first time Israeli soldiers invade the residential parts of Ni’lin in an attempt to suppress a demonstration, since Palestinian demonstrator Aqel Sadeq Srour was shot dead by sniper fire approximately six months ago (5 June 2009), during a protest at the village. Srour’s brother was arrested today in the village center.

Today’s response by the Israeli army illustrates the ongoing policy of escalation which the army has been implementing in Ni’ilin for the past three weeks. This policy includes reintroducing the use of 0.22 caliber live ammunition as a means of crowd dispersal – in direct contradiction to the Chief Military Attorney’s orders.

Since June 2008, five Palestinian demonstrators have been killed by soldiers’ fire during protests in Ni’ilin, including two minors – 10 year-old Ahmed Mousa and 17 year-old Yussef Amirah. A further 34 demonstrators have been injured by live ammunition, and 87 have been arrested.

As a result of the separation barrier’s construction, 3,920 dunams of Ni’lin’s lands (30% of all accessible lands) have been de-facto confiscated; this is in addition to the 1,973 dunams on which Israeli settlements have been built since 1967.

IDF uses ‘two-two bullets’ in Ni’ilin clash

The Jerusalem Post

15 November 2009

IDF troops used ammunition equivalent to live bullets against protesters at Ni’ilin on Friday, where a weekly protest by Palestinians and left-wing activists from Israel and abroad is held against the West Bank security barrier.

The military ordinarily only uses protest-dispersal means such as tear gas and a recently introduced “skunk bomb” that is harmless but exudes a pungent stench.

One Border Police officer was lightly wounded in Friday’s clash when he was hit by a rock. He was given preliminary treatment at the scene and later taken to a hospital.

A rioter at Friday’s protest said the military fired ‘two-two bullets,’ small metal pellets similar to those fired by BB guns but of a larger caliber (5.6 mm. vs the BB gun pellets’ 4.5 mm.). The man said ‘two-two bullets’ have not been used against protesters since May.

According to a statement issued by left-wing NGO B’Tselem on July 9, IDF Judge Advocate General Brig.-Gen. Avihai Mandelblit said in response to a query from the organization that “tutu bullets” are not considered a protest-dispersal means.

Mandelblit told B’Tselem in July that the rules for using “tutu bullets” are “restrictive, and parallel to the rules of engagement when using live ammunition.”

The protesters on Friday held signs inscribed “From Berlin to Bil’in,” in reference to the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Bil’in is another Palestinian village that is a hotspot of protests against the barrier.

The IDF confirmed that 5.66 mm. pellets (two-two bullets) were used on Friday. “The use of such ammunition is done against protesters where the use of violence has been ascertained, according to the restrictive protocol followed in incidents such as this,” the IDF Spokesman’s Office said. in a statement.

Meanwhile, near Deir Ghassana (22 km. northwest of Ramallah), the security barrier was reportedly breached when Palestinian, Israeli and foreign demonstrators broke open one of its gates.

The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said the demonstrators managed to break the lock on the gate by rocking it back and forth, despite the presence of soldiers, who shot rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at the protesters. It said one demonstrator was lightly wounded in the leg by a rubber-coated bullet.

Guardian: Israelis ‘firing live rounds’ at West Bank protesters

Peter Beaumont | The Guardian

New tear gas projectile, called sarukh, reaches around 500 meters. — New tear gas projectile, called *sarukh*, reaches around 500 meters.

Israeli armed forces and border police used the cover of the war against Hamas in Gaza to reintroduce the firing of .22 rifle bullets – as well as the extensive use of a new model of tear-gas canister – against unarmed demonstrators in the Occupied West Bank protesting at the building of Israel’s “separation wall”.

The tactics were highlighted on Friday, when a US protester, Tristan Anderson, 38, was hit in the head by one of the new extended-range gas canisters in the village of Ni’lin, suffering an open wound in his skull and substantial brain damage. Anderson’s friend, Gabrielle Silverman, claims he was struck by a canister fired from a high-velocity rifle. The Israeli military says stone-throwing “poses a threat to troops”, and several officers have been injured by rocks.

It said troops used the permitted means of riot dispersal in Friday’s incident, including tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and stun grenades.

The extended-range canisters have been brought into service at the same time that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and border police have again been using live rounds fired from Ruger sniper rifles, banned in 2001 by Israel’s then military advocate general, Menahem Finkelstein.

The new gas canister that injured Anderson – the fourth member of the International Solidarity Movement to be killed or seriously injured by Israeli troops since the beginning of the Second Intifada – is fired at a much higher speed than the gas canisters and grenades deployed before.

According to witnesses, soldiers have been firing the canisters directly at protesters, sometimes from a few dozen metres, using the hard plastic-coated metal tubes as a weapon.

“They have introduced new weapons,” said Sasha Solana, a colleague of Anderson from the International Solidarity Movement. “They are shooting directly into people.”

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, complained to the Israeli judge advocate general two weeks ago about the new tactics.