The Israeli military today continued their attempts to repress the weekly demonstration in An Nabi Saleh. Following on from their near fatal shooting of a 14 year old boy a week ago, soldiers invaded the village within minutes of the demonstration starting, driving jeeps to within approximately 50 metres of the demonstrators and firing upon them with tear gas, percussion grenades, rubber bullets and rubber-coated steel bullets. nab
Despite the military resorting so rapidly to violence, the villagers, accompanied by Israeli and international activists, determinedly continued their attempts to reach the nearby springs that have been usurped by settlers from the illegal settlement of Hallamish. A number of demonstrators were able to get close to one of the springs before soldiers again fired upon them to force them to retreat. Demonstrators who remained within the village were fired upon from above by soldiers who had occupied the same house from which they shot the boy the previous week.
At least 12 Palestinians sustained injuries from Israeli weaponry, three of which are reported to be serious, including two head wounds. nab2
The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settlers’ attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Hallamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
Under a cloud of tear gas residents of the Palestinian village Nabi Saleh, Israeli and international activists run away during the weekly demonstration against Israeli settlement expansion, in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near the Jewish settlement of Halamish
Ehab Barghouti would not have been at the demonstration at all if his father Asdal had had his way.
Asdal found his son, 14, on the road from their village of Beit Rima and ordered him into the car. “I told him: ‘You shouldn’t go, you’re too young.’ He told me: ‘I want to resist.’ I said: ‘Do you want me to see you on TV?'” But when Asdal stopped at a local garage and went in to talk to the mechanic, Ehab made his escape.
A few hours later he was unconscious in intensive care in Ramallah’s main hospital, a rubber-coated steel bullet having penetrated his skull. He had been standing among a crowd of youths, well inside the nearby village of Nabi Saleh, on a hillside carpeted with the first daisies and wild flowers of spring. Many of the youths were throwing stones at an unfinished house 25 metres away which had been occupied by armed Israeli Border Police some 15 minutes earlier. Shortly after 2.30pm a shot rang out, probably from the window, and Ehab dropped face down on the ground before being carried vomiting and bleeding from the wound above his right eye by four older men to relative safety back up the hill.
Even if freshly promised “proximity talks” between Israelis and Palestinians get under way, they are unlikely to halt the weekly protests that will take place after noon prayers today in some villages and tomorrow in others. The Palestinian Authority did not start the weekly protests that have now spread to more than half a dozen West Bank villages. And it is not leading them. But a supportive Palestinian cabinet statement appeared to adopt their model last month, applauding that: “Peaceful and popular efforts have regained international recognition of the just Palestinian cause and revealed the void Israeli excuses for the construction of settlements and the wall.”
For something is happening in these villages nestling among the rocky hills and olive groves between Ramallah and Nablus. The Israeli military does not accept the classification of the protests as non-violent; most usually end in confrontations between stone-throwing Palestinian youths and armed police and troops. But for the six years of such protests none of the Palestinians, in contrast to the security forces, have carried weapons. If these are the first tentative stirrings of a new uprising, and it is doubtful they can be described as that yet, then they are closer to the beginnings in 1987 of the first intifada, the so-called “war of stones”, than the second, with its bloody record of suicide bombings between 2000 and around 2005. Some commentators have dubbed the protests – and the apparent endorsement of them by the internationally respected Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad – as the “white” intifada.
Either way the protests, and the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to condemn them, have provoked a strong reaction from Israel’s security establishment. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this week that Israel had warned the PA that if it did not “contain” the protests it would lose co-operation with Israel and there would be more arrests within the West Bank. An unnamed Israeli security official was earlier quoted in the same paper as having told diplomats that the protests constituted an “existential” threat to Israel.
Except for the 10 real injuries (eight to demonstrators and two to photographers), Nabi Saleh last Friday had a flavour of Kabuki about it with Palestinians, supporting international and Israeli activists, and security forces all playing their part. The march of perhaps 100 men, children and a few women started in bright sunshine from the middle of the village. They began their descent along the main street chanting slogans like “National Unity: Fatah, Hamas, PFLP”. They followed the road round to the left, past the petrol station and were still a good 800 metres from the main road (Route 465) separating Nabi Saleh from the Israeli settlement of Halamish when the first tear gas canisters – along, say the protesters, with rubber bullets – were fired by the Israeli forces who had long taken up a position on a hilltop to the right. Some marchers scrambled down the hillside to the right, others retreated back towards the village, while others continued to move forward.
There was perhaps an hour of cat-and-mouse between the youths from Tamimi and the Israeli forces controlling the exits from Nabi Saleh, the former throwing stones that fell short of any target and the latter firing rubber bullets and tear gas canisters (aluminium and rubber) that hit and injured a few protesters before the forces began to advance into the village itself. Three Jeeps advanced slowly up the road behind a white truck carrying a water cannon spraying “skunk”, a foul-smelling substance that leaves its odour for a week in the clothes of anyone who comes into direct contact with it. Taking refuge with perhaps a dozen protesters in the back room of the petrol station you could hear the loud explosion of a stun grenade – and the firing of tear gas and rubber bullets to cover the front Jeep as it was pelted with stones – before it began to move slowly back down the road again.
It seemed all over. But then the forces took over two houses, one the green building from which Ehab Barghouti, still in a coma yesterday, was shot. Pictures taken by The Independent from earlier in the protest show him hanging back from the front lines. But once the forces were inside the house, he was within range and in real danger. According to the Israeli human rights agency B’tselem, the regulation minimum range for firing rubber bullets is 40 metres and such bullets must be fired only at legs and not fired at children. Secondly, it is far from clear why the security forces occupied the house at all. According to Ramzi Tamimi, 33, one of the men who took the inert Ehab back up the hill: “As long as the soldiers stay away from the village and stay at the entrances, nothing happens. They deliberately come to make friction with us.” And beyond this is the fact that the entire protest took place on Palestinian land, land that if the putative peace talks ever had an outcome, would be part of a Palestinian state. For the stated, and of course never reached, destination of the march was a spring a few metres on the other side of Route 465, on what had long been Tamimi land. But the Halamish residents now control the land – and the spring – to the extent that when the villagers tried to cultivate their olive trees last November, they say they were driven away by armed, stone-throwing settlers.
The military says that “rock-throwing is considered a serious offence, placing others at significant risk and endangering both public and regional security.” But in Nabi Saleh the protesters were still marching peacefully, well within the village, and certainly not throwing stones when the military started firing tear gas.
At times the Israeli military has been deploying more lethal ammunition. The more famous and longer-running protests against the separation barrier have been at Nilin and Bil’in (where the IDF has finally decided to modify the route of the barrier so it will swallow up less of the villagers’ land, two-and-a-half years after a court order to do so). At both it has fired .22 live ammunition and high-velocity tear gas projectiles which are intended by their US manufacturers to be used to penetrate walls rather than against open-air crowds. It was one of these that severely wounded the US activist Tristan Anderson in the forehead in Nilin in March 2009 and has left him, after months in an Israeli hospital, with permanent brain damage. Another killed a prominent Bil’in protester Bassem abu Rahmah a month later.
According to the Popular Struggle Co-ordination committee, a loose body linking the local protest organisers, the .22 live bullets – which were proscribed for crowd-control by the military Advocate General in 2001 but reintroduced Operation Cast Lead in Gaza – have killed one demonstrator and injured 28 in Nilin alone since January last year.
Then there are the scores of arrests, frequently at night, including five in Nabi Saleh two days before last Friday’s demo. The arrests – including 112 in Bil’in alone since May 2008 – have worried European diplomats enough for them to form a rota to monitor the military court in Ofer where most of the detainees appear. One day last week – in the additional presence of an official from the US Consulate General – one of the Bil’in protest leaders, Abdullah Abu Rahmah, 39, who has been in military detention since December, was remanded again on a series of charges including a bizarre one of illegal arms possession; the indictment relates to Mr Abu Rahmah’s collection of spent tear gas canisters for an exhibition. As his Israeli lawyer Gaby Lasky told the court, her client was in no different a position from the police in the Negev border town of Sderot who have a collection of exploded Qassam rockets fired from Gaza to show visitors. “Because they are spent, they cannot be addressed as illegal arms,” she patiently explained to the military judge. The case continues.
The military has also sought to move against another notable aspect of the protests, the supportive presence of the left-wing Israeli activists who now regularly join them. The registration numbers of cars entering the West Bank through various checkpoints are checked against those of known Israeli participants. Among the 15 Israelis taking part in Nabi Saleh last week was Jonathan Pollak, a 28-year-old from Anarchists Against the Wall who is media co-ordinator on the joint committee.
For Ayed Morrar, a true Palestinian veteran of unarmed protest in the West Bank, the presence of Israelis is highly positive. “It’s good for our people, and good for them,” he says. Mr Morrar (who was injured by rubber bullets when he took part in the first demonstration in Nabi Saleh in January) is a popular leader in Budrus, where the villagers managed to change the route of the barrier at a time when suicide bombing was at its height and popular unarmed protest much criticised by Palestinian militants. Mr Morrar has spent six years in an Israeli prison as a Fatah activist (even though he never participated in armed violence) but now charges both Fatah and Hamas with being more interested in the sometimes bloody rivalry with each other than the national cause. His credo is to “apply all the sources of pressure on the occupation except killing. It is forbidden to decide to kill, to try to kill or to kill.” Arguing the Palestinians needs the international community on its side, he adds: “We want to show we are not against Jews, not against Israelis. We are against the occupation.”
UPDATE: Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi, who was shot by Israeli Occupation Forces on Friday during the weekly demonstration has been in intensive care since reaching the hospital in Ramallah. On Monday 8 March, after a few days of slow improvement he was reported to have gone into a coma. Doctors have not been able to give precise information about his condition.
Report from 5 March 2010:
Demonstrators in An Nabi Salih were met with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs. The IOF also fired skunk, a putrid-smelling chemical spray. One international was hit with a metal tear gas canister in the arm. Four Palestinians were injured, including a young man Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi, 14, from Beit Rima, who was hit with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the head. He was taken to a hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He is listed in critical but stable condition.
An expectant air hung over the village of An Nabi Salih. This feeling was heightened as IOF soldiers gathered on a hilltop near the edge of the village. Despite this sentiment, An Nabi Salih decided to celebrate International Women’s Day. The popular committee of An Nabi Salih invited the mothers, daughters and sisters of the surrounding villages to join their demonstration for unfettered access to their farmlands and spring.
The march began in its normal fashion, but today the men’s voices, which demanded justice, were punctuated by the unusual and melodic accompaniment of women. An Nabi Salih’s weekly demonstration was halted by Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) use of copious amounts of tear gas in the opening minutes. The demonstration was pushed in disarray shortly after it began by the violent actions of the IOF. This disarray was short-lived as the demonstrators collected themselves.
The demonstrators quickly reconvened. Many women took the lead in defending the village from the IOF through non-violent tactics of organized community resistance. These efforts were successful for over an hour until IOF soldiers drove a large vehicle, which blasted skunk, through the demonstration. While shooting skunk, the IOF threw sound bombs and shot tear gas. The demonstrators were made to reassemble after this. In the interim, IOF soldiers took control of a building under construction and used its roof as a vantage point to take better aim the Palestinians who traipsed through their fields.
Ehab just after being shot by Israeli Occupation Forces
The IOF shot at the youth of the village from this building for nearly 40 min. Their targets were only 50 meters away from the soldier’s position. Yet, they still used rubber-coated steel bullets. The decision to use these weapons led to the critical injury of Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi of Beit Rima, a village close to An Nabi Salih.
He was shot just above his left eye. He maintained consciousness for only a few minutes. He was driven to Salfit Hospital and then transferred to Ramallah Main Hospital. Ehab underwent emergency surgery to remove either bone fragments from his brain or the rubber-coated steel bullet from his skull. It was unclear which, but the surgery was successful. Ehab was moved to an Intensive Care Unit and is listed in critical but stable condition.
The hilltop village of An Nabi Salih has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstration protested the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the January 9th 2010 uprooting of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located on highway 465, opposite An Nabi Salih. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settler’s attempt to re-annex An Nabi Salih land despite the December 2009 Israeli court case that ruled the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Salih residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Salih is located on the Hallamish side of highway 465 and is just unfortunately one of many expansions of the settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
Demonstrators in An Nabi Salih were met with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs. The IOF also fired skunk, a putrid-smelling chemical spray. One international was hit with a metal tear gas canister in the arm. Four Palestinians were injured, including a young man Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi, 14, from Beit Rima, who was hit with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the head. He was taken to a hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He is listed in critical but stable condition.
IOF Occupies Building
An expectant air hung over the village of An Nabi Salih. This feeling was heightened as IOF soldiers gathered on a hilltop near the edge of the village. Despite this sentiment, An Nabi Salih decided to celebrate International Women’s Day. The popular committee of An Nabi Salih invited the mothers, daughters and sisters of the surrounding villages to join their demonstration for unfettered access to their farmlands and spring.
The march began in its normal fashion, but today the men’s voices, which demanded justice, were punctuated by the unusual and melodic accompaniment of women. An Nabi Salih’s weekly demonstration was halted by Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) use of copious amounts of tear gas in the opening minutes. The demonstration was pushed in disarray shortly after it began by the violent actions of the IOF. This disarray was short-lived as the demonstrators collected themselves.
Ehab
The demonstrators quickly reconvened. Many women took the lead in defending the village from the IOF through non-violent tactics of organized community resistance. These efforts were successful for over an hour until IOF soldiers drove a large vehicle, which blasted skunk, through the demonstration. While shooting skunk, the IOF threw sound bombs and shot tear gas. The demonstrators were made to reassemble after this. In the interim, IOF soldiers took control of a building under construction and used its roof as a vantage point to take better aim the Palestinians who traipsed through their fields.
The IOF shot at the youth of the village from this building for nearly 40 min. Their targets were only 50 meters away from the soldier’s position. Yet, they still used rubber-coated steel bullets. The decision to use these weapons led to the critical injury of Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi of Beit Rima, a village close to An Nabi Salih.
He was shot just above his left eye. He maintained consciousness for only a few minutes. He was driven to Salfit Hospital and then transferred to Ramallah Main Hospital. Ehab underwent emergency surgery to remove either bone fragments from his brain or the rubber-coated steel bullet from his skull. It was unclear which, but the surgery was successful. Ehab was moved to an Intensive Care Unit and is listed in critical but stable condition.
The hilltop village of An Nabi Salih has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstration protested the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the January 9th 2010 uprooting of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located on highway 465, opposite An Nabi Salih. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settler’s attempt to re-annex An Nabi Salih land despite the December 2009 Israeli court case that ruled the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Salih residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Salih is located on the Hallamish side of highway 465 and is just unfortunately one of many expansions of the settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
There was an odd collection of internationals rousing in our media office this morning. We were an eclectic mix of activists from the US, Denmark, France, England, Sweden and Taiwan preparing to head out to various demonstrations across the West Bank. After an early guitar session with fellow volunteers, we waved goodbye and began our journey to the Nabi Salih protest. Although we hadn’t made this journey before, we found the service in Ramallah without much trouble. We were three at this point, Valle, Sweet Prince and Lucy, fresh with international enthusiasm to go to a Palestinian demonstration.
Fifteen minutes into the ride, it dawned on us that we needed an alibi if we were questioned by the IDF at the Atara checkpoint just ahead. Valle, pulling out a giant wooden cross out of his bag, thought that we could perhaps pass as Christian zealots following the footsteps of the Crusaders in a village called Sinjil, which apparently has some ancient tombs. Inevitably, the soldier at the checkpoint demanded to see our passports and told us to turn back. After much debate, a shebab persuaded us to follow him on a paved road nearby to get around the checkpoint. We reluctantly followed him, foreseeing that a military vehicle will pull up and chastise us for undermining their orders. Of course, five minutes later, a soldier brandishing an M-16 demanded to know where we thought we were going. Damn, we thought, busted so soon.
In a diplomatic tone, Sweet Prince calmly explained that we were simply pilgrims on our way to visit the holy sites in Sinjil. Unfortunately, we looked more like hippies then devout Christians. Not completely buying our story, the soldier insisted on us handing over our passports. Knowing that our magical little passbooks of privilege would most likely be confiscated and not returned until we signed a letter prohibiting us from re-entering the West Bank, we refused. After a couple minutes of fruitless negotiating, we were forced to turn back.
In our determined spirit and armed with a UN map of the area, we decided to make a 12 kilometer trek weaving through the valleys, dodging the checkpoints to reach Nabi Salih. We zigzagged through aged olive groves, passed picnicking families and strolled along tree-lined stone cobbled footpaths. Nevertheless, the overwhelming injustice of the occupation crept up on us as we saw wadis and its vast tiers of stone lined plateaus upon the horizon; a work of labor over a matter of years and decades that can be snatched away from Palestinians upon the flicker of a pen. Another picture perfect postcard with a back story not often known in this ignorant world of ours I thought. And the beat goes on with the occupation at 61 years of age.
Alas, after three hours under the warm Palestinian sun, we finally approached Nabi Salih. The deserted streets with accompanied by gun shots and shouting ringing from a distance. Due to our three hour detour, we had just missed the demonstration as the press, with gas masks still strapped on their foreheads were heading out. What was still alive and kicking were the shebab throwing stones at the IDF in the field. After a quick refreshment at a Palestinian house, we proceeded to witness tear gasses clouds above a scattered crowd of Palestinian youth, some barely even 7 years old, flinging rocks with homemade slings at one of the most powerful armies in the world.
Valle's lip after being hit by a rubber bullet.
We were within 300 meters of the IDF, far behind the shebab taking photos when Valle nonchalantly said, “I think something hit me.” A stream of crimson red was running down from his lip. A circle of Palestinians, Israeli activists and internationals soon formed around the wounded Swede. In the midst of a panicked crowd, Valle tried to assure everyone that he was okay as he held a blood soaked handkerchief in his hand. Although a bit relieved, we could still clearly see that his upper lip had been cut completely through; forming three lips like those of cleft lips. At first, we thought that it could have been shrapnel that sliced his lip, but a shebab later said that he saw a rubber bullet ricochet from the ground. If it had been a rubber bullet that hit him straight on, his teeth would have been smashed in, a cringing thought.
Within minutes of Valle being shot, the IDF unleashed 40 canisters of high velocity tear gas from their military vehicle. The canisters rained down in all directions as plumes of thick white tear gas lingered in the blue sky, scattering the crowd like ants. It was a run-run-as-fast-as-you-can kind of situation with apprehension of the canister dropping on our heads or being engulfed in the lachrymatory agent. As we ran, an Arabic speaking international managed to hail a car to bring Valle to the hospital. He returned an hour later with three stitches and enough resilience to want to go back to the field where the shebab were still hurling stones. Until sundown, it was a cat and mouse game until the IDF started shooting live ammunition into the air and at the ground, creating mushrooms of dust to show the shebab that time’s up, they’ve had enough today.
It’s an obvious act of resistance against the occupation as anyone can see, but it’s also evident that it was a game for the IDF, shooting tear gas canisters, lobbing sound grenades and firing rubber bullets at Palestinians for hours until they’ve had enough and eventually invade the field with their US funded military arms and chase the Palestinians back to their homes. It’s a procedural Friday routine we were told by the Palestinian family who later treated us to dinner in their home. Knowing that Palestinians won’t be able to succeed through force in this current state of affairs, I couldn’t help but wonder how these weekly stone-throwing actions hinder the reconciliation process as Israeli media paints the picture of violent anti-Semitic Arabs. However, many of the shebab are simply unloading steam, taking out their frustration and in their stone throwing, physically resisting the occupation.
We returned to Ramallah and smoke boxed the apartment with strong, cancer-ridden Palestinian cigarettes and we swapped stories of the various protests we were at. The stale cigarette smoke mixed with the rotten smell of sewerage, carried back by two other volunteers who were sprayed with stinky water at the Bil’in protest, despite their multiple showers. The mood was jovial. We compared mental notes of our day in Palestine over sweet sage tea. Shot, stinking, dirty and tired, we laughed away our fucked up world through antics and jokes and went off to a world of dreams.
