Tag: Bil’in

Trailer Evacuated and removed But Bil’in outpost remains


Class in new structure Today.

At 11:00 AM the Israeli military forcefully broke into, evacuated and removed by crane a trailer placed by the villages of Bil’in on their land cut off from their village by the wall. But, the villagers of Bil’in have expanded the “outpost” neighborhood of Bil’in west and built another structure that will serve as a school.

Today at 2:00 PM the village children will attend the first class to take place in the new structure.

The villagers have been provided with a permit from the Bil’in village council verifying that the land is legally owned by Bil’in residents and that the council approves the structures.

The trailer removed today was placed yesterday December 25th and replaced another trailer that was established and removed the same evening on Dec 23d. Both trailers served as “the center for joint struggle”. The evacuation procedure took place in stark contrast to
the treatment of massive settler apartment buildings, being built just hundreds of meters away. These buildings are illegal even according to the Israeli civil administration as most are built without a permit but the Israeli authorities chose to turn a blind eye and assist the
continued construction.

Bil’in residents have a pending Supreme Court case regarding the route of the barrier on their lands. Attorney Michael Sfard, representing Bil’in residents, has uncovered that the current route was designed to protect the investment of Israeli and Canadian real estate brokers who
claim to have bought the land from Bil’in residents. The Companies have failed to provide any proof of the transaction to the court and Bil’in residents deny that any land was sold.

The Tent of Defiance

In a demonstration held at noon on Dec 23, the villagers of Bil’in erected a tent on land cut off from the village by the annexation barrier. The tent was meant to replace the trailer that was forcefully evacuated and removed the day before by the Israeli military. The tent and trailer are the headquarters of “The centre for joint struggle”.

The evacuation took place a few hundred meters away from the construction site of the Matityahu Mizrah settlement where, according to the Israeli civil administration, hundreds of housing units are being built without permit contrary to Israeli law (not to mention International law).

Some 400 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals, walked peacefully from the village to the soldiers’ lines and managed to put up the tent despite the soldiers’ violent attempts to prevent them. The demonstrators chanted and sang in the rain around the tent.

Some of the villagers tried to access their lands across mounds of rocks nearby while soldiers beat them with batons in response. Suddenly a group of soldiers went after one of villagers, Adib Abu Rahma, father of 8 children; they pushed him to the ground hitting his head strongly on a rock and then dragged behind a military jeep kicking him along the
way.

Soon after Israeli activist Yotam Ronnen was also arrested. According to Yotam, soldiers of the “Yasam” unit, beat him and Adib, focusing on Adib, while the two were sitting on the ground with their hands handcuffed behind there backs.

“Adib was already in a lot of pain from the blow to his head. I kept asking the soldiers to have the military doctor who was there with them check Adib. When they finally did this half an hour later the military doctor concluded that due to his head injury Adib requires hospitalisation. Despite this and the fact that he was clearly in severe pain the military released me after some time but kept Adib.” said Yotam.

Adib was transferred to Givat Zeev settlement police station and interrogated for five hours. At 9:00 PM he was transferred by a Palestinian ambulance to a hospital in Ramallah. He was later released to his home but was not able to comment due his condition.

Israeli activist Leiser Peles and another Palestinian activist were also beaten severely.
For main stream media coverage click here
The route of the wall in Bil’in was designed to annex Bil’in’s lands to allow for the expansion of the Modi’in Elite settlement.

Bil’in’s Non-Violent Struggle Endures in the Face of Israeli Violence

by Jesse

Today in the village of Bili’n, the villagers confronted the illegal theft of their land at the construction site of the apartheid barrier that will confiscate 60% of their land. I was among dozens of international and Israeli supporters who accompanied this non violent demonstration.

As we approached the lines of soldiers blocking our path to the fence we rushed quickly to the right to gain access to the construction area but were quickly met by yet another line of soldiers who tried to prevent us from passing. With enormous spirit and willpower many of the villagers and activists were able to pass through the soldier’s line and climb over a mound of rocks to gain access to the construction site. The soldiers reacted in their usual manner – with violent beatings.

Four Israeli activists and one Palestinian were manhandled and arrested. The Palestinian and one of the Israelis were released during the demonstration. The other three activists were released later in the evening.

As usual, our non-violent resistance was met with violence by the soldiers who were pushing people about on the rocky terrain and dragging the arrestees and potential arrestees who managed to get away from the soldier’s grip. A few of the soldiers present seemed very intent on hurting people and were seen being very aggressive and violent time and again.

A 61 year old Spanish activist was pushed off of a rocky ledge by a soldier and broke her shoulder. She is currently hospitalized in Ramallah, and will not be able to leave the area for one week. The Israeli military’s use of violence against peaceful Palestinian demonstrations is unfortunately commonplace in occupied Palestine and continues to plague the Palestinian’s struggle for freedom and self determination in their own lands.

Three New Olive Trees Successfully Planted in Bil’in; Palestinian Man Hit by Rubber Coated Bullet

Villagers from Bil’in, supported by international and Israeli activists, succeeded in planting three new olive trees at the construction site of the illegal apartheid wall, close to their village on the West Bank. Soldiers responded to this practical and symbolic gesture with brute force and by shooting tear gas and rubber coated bullets at the non-violent demonstrators.

At 12:15, about 200 Palestinians, accompanied by 50 International and Israeli activists, started to walk toward the construction site of the wall. Still far away from the line of soldiers that awaited them, they were nevertheless fired on with tear gas canisters, in an aggressive attempt from the Israeli soldiers to stop the protest before it had even begun. One Israeli activist was directly hit with a tear gas canister leaving burn marks on his head and shoulder.

Eventually, after regrouping, the demonstrators managed to reach the construction site, chanting and clapping their hands. Soldiers, apparently eager to do something violent, arrested an Israeli activist, Yonatan Polack, for no apparent reason other than the fact he was carrying an olive tree saplings. He was released a few hours later when the demonstration had finished. A Palestinian activist spoke, condemning the construction of the apartheid wall and the violent Israeli occupation of Palestine. He also called for the release of the four hostages from CPT (Christian Peacemaker Team), who are currently being held in Iraq.

The demonstrators started to plant the olive trees on what, according to international law, is Palestinian soil. The saplings were meant to symbolically replace over two hundred olive trees stolen by the companies building the large Modi’in Elit settlement on the lands of Bil’in. Soldiers pushed the demonstrators around, beat them, and dragged them on the ground, but did not manage to stop the new trees from taking root. A group of illegal Israeli settlers stood by one of the military jeeps and watched the spectacle, photographed the demonstrators, and made sure that the soldiers were doing their best to safeguard settler interests.

After the trees were planted, the demonstrators started to head back to the village. At this point, soldiers fired more tear gas canisters. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, John Dugard, who is preparing a report for the U.N. general assembly, was overcome by teargas. Rubber bullets were also fired, one of which hit a Palestinian boy in the foot. He received immediate care from medical personnel in the area under the branches of an olive tree, while the air was still thick with tear gas.

AP wire photos:

A Conference Against the Wall in Bil’in

[BILIN, West Bank] In our village of Bilin, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, we are living an important but overlooked story of the occupation. Though Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza earlier this year, they are continuing to expand their West Bank settlements.

On our village’s land, Israel is building one new settlement and expanding five others. These settlements will form a city called Modiin Illit, with tens of thousands of settlers, many times the number that were evacuated from Gaza. These settlements consume most of our area’s water. Throughout the West Bank, settlement and wall construction, arrests, killing and occupation continue.

Over one year ago the International Court of Justice handed down an advisory ruling that Israel’s construction of a wall on Palestinian land violated international law. Today, Palestinians in villages like ours are struggling to implement that decision and stop the illegal construction using nonviolence. Unfortunately the international community has done little to support us.

Our village is being strangled by Israel’s wall. Though Bilin sits two and a half miles east of the Green Line, Israel is taking roughly 60 percent of our 1,000 acres of land in order to annex the six settlements and build the wall around them. This land is also money to us – we work it. Bilin’s 1,600 residents depend on farming and harvesting olives for our livelihood. The wall will turn Bilin into an open-air prison, like Gaza.

After Israeli courts refused our appeals to prevent wall construction, we, along with Israelis and international citizens from around the world, began peacefully protesting the confiscation of our land. We chose to resist nonviolently because we are peace-loving people who are victims of the occupation. We have opened our homes to the Israelis who have joined us. They have become our partners in struggle. Together we send a strong message that we can coexist in peace and security. We welcome anyone who comes to us as a guest and who works for peace and justice for both peoples, but we will resist anyone who comes as an occupier.

We have held more than 90 peaceful demonstrations since February. We learned from the experience and advice of villages such as Budrus and Biddu, who resisted the wall nonviolently. Palestinians from other areas now call people from Bilin “Palestinian Gandhis.”

Our demonstrations aim to stop the bulldozers destroying our land, and to send a message about the wall’s impact. We’ve chained ourselves to olive trees that were being bulldozed for the wall to show that taking the life of our trees takes the life of our village. We’ve distributed letters asking the soldiers to think before they shoot at us, explaining that we are not against the Israeli people, we are against the building of the wall on our land. We refuse to be strangled by the wall in silence. In a famous Palestinian short story by Ghassan Kanafani, “Men in the Sun,” Palestinian workers suffocate inside a tanker truck. Upon discovering them, the driver screams, “Why didn’t you bang on the sides of the tank?” In Bilin, we are banging, we are screaming.

In the face of our nonviolent resistance, Israeli soldiers have attacked our peaceful protests with teargas, clubs, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition. They have injured over 400 villagers. They invade the village at night, entering homes, pulling families out and arresting people.

But a year after the International Court of Justice’s decision, wall construction Palestinian land continues. Behind the smoke screen of the Gaza withdrawal, the real story is Israel’s attempt to take control of the West Bank by building the illegal wall and settlements that threaten to destroy dozens of villages like Bilin and any hope for peace.

Bilin is banging, Bilin is screaming. Please stand with us so that we can achieve our freedom by peaceful and nonviolent means.

We invite you to participate with us in an international conference that we will hold in Bilin to address the occupation and build nonviolent resistence to it, February 20 & 21, 2006.

For more information on the conference, please write to:
bel3en@yahoo.com

Please forward this invitation widely!

Bilin’s Popular Committee
Against the Wall and settelments