Tag: Bil’in

The reason why I will never forget the word ‘Zaalan’

By Taka
Edited by the ISM Media Center

“Aaaaah, Aaaah…” Abdullah’s voice, from behind the blue-grey curtain, echoed throughout the first floor of the hospital. The medical staff was cleaning the wounds in his head – just another sacrifice people from Bil’in have made in their struggle for justice and dignity. It sounded as if he was laughing, and pierced my heart, tearing it to pieces. “Khalas, khalas, khalas… (stop, stop…)”

After they took the X-ray, we were assured that his wound would not create any serious long-term effects. As we left the hospital Adeeb said to me, “Thank you.”

‘I didn’t do anything’ – I meant to say, but my mind was whirling, and I could not force the words out of my mouth.

———

I participated in a demonstration on Road 443 two weeks before, and last Friday at a demonstration in Um Salamona (south of Bethlehem) on the day of its one-year anniversary. It seemed to me that in the three weeks between December 21st and January 11th, the military changed completely in Bil’in. During most of the demonstrations, wherever they were, I could sniff the smell of similar human bodies from the soldiers, and to be honest, I felt pity for them. They are much younger than me, and cannot even imagine the existence of an alternative to this violent, unproductive way of spending their weekend! On January 11th, they were much different.

There was craziness at the demonstration that day, which I have never felt in the past three months, it was unbelievable and stressful. As I propped up one edge of a banner which read, “LEVIEV TURNS THESE ROCKS OF APARTHEID INTO DIAMONDS” I saw up close how one of the soldiers went mad, shouting “Anna Majnun! (I am crazy!)” while he pushed the demonstrators. This may have been in retaliation for villagers pretending “there’s a bomb!” near the soldiers, which surprised a few and provided a good joke for demonstrators, as the soldiers threw real sound bombs on the ground, just a meter away from participants.

——–

After 30 minutes of hard-fought struggle, nonviolent demonstrators retreated, and children started throwing stones. As I sensed (to my regret, mistakenly) ‘the end’ of the demonstration, I went back up the road to the ‘International House’ of the village, greeted some of friends, and caught a minibus going to Ramallah. When I saw inside the car, I was frightened, shocked, and at a loss for words. There was Adeeb, another villager, and Abdullah, whose head was bandaged and jeans stained with blood.

Adeeb the other friend from the village, it seemed to me, looked natural, or tried to be calm. Or they may have tried their best to keep the atmosphere optimistic, to cheer Abdullah up. I was confused. ‘What happened? Why has this happened?’ I asked myself. Eventually I asked Adeeb, “Jeish? (soldiers?)” He said yes.

I lost control of my own mind… I vaguely watched a half-meter ahead. Adeeb, my good friend, tried to cheer me up, waving a hand in front of my eyes and then half-asked and half-declared; “Inte Zaalan.” Abdullah, whose was conscious but had a recognizably weak voice, interpreted the word to me; “(You are) sad…”

I tried my best to control myself but was successful only about two-thirds of the time. I was so confused and shocked that I intended to speak as much as possible in Arabic but probably used a mixture of Arabic, Hebrew and English. I managed to say something like this to them:

“Do you know why I am sad? Because I was not there! I may have been able to prevent this violence if I was there! Because I am international!”

———

In the middle of the road to the hospital, we came across an ambulance. Abdullah and another friend from the village rode in the ambulance while Adeeb and I remained on the minibus as we drove to a hospital in central Ramallah. I mildly cursed the fact that an ambulance does not make hardly any difference to a minibus in terms of arrival time. I imagined what I would do and say, if I were to be there.

Could my presence really be able to deter violence against him? It is a question. One thing I imagined for sure is I would lose my temper, or as French people say, ‘losing my head’. I would also have to say one thing, and let me express the words in this space.

“Why you are doing this? Why you are attacking such a nice person who struggles only for their land and peace with justice for all people?” I would ask the soldiers this if I were there. I would have to ask.

“Why are you full of hate? Why do you keep silent? Do you really believe this is the way for you to survive?”

“Why you’ve done that!”

“Why!”

“WHY!!”

*UPDATED VIDEO WITH SUBTITLES* Bil’in protests Wall, Leviev, army shoots popular committee member in the head

On Friday, January 11th, villagers of Bil’in were joined by around 70 Israeli, international, and other Palestinian Human Rights activists in a protest against the Annexation Wall. In Bil’in, the wall is stealing more than 60% of village land, and even the Israeli Supreme Court said in a recent decision that the route of the wall was not planned for military reasons, but for land.

In that September 4th Supreme Court decision, the Wall was ordered to be taken down and the route redrawn. This was a court victory for the joint non-violent struggle, but has yet to be reflected with facts on the ground. The wall is still standing, and in fact recently settlers attempted to place new caravans on village land.

The demonstration began as a march towards the gate in the Wall, where soldiers were standing with guns drawn. At the front of the march was the banner, “LEVIEV TURNS THESE ROCKS OF APARTHEID INTO DIAMONDS” in reference to the diamond mogul Lev Leviev, protesting his extensive involvement in the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Soldiers let off a barrage of flash bombs when people got close. Flash bombs are similar to sound bombs, but they explode much sooner and are made of metal instead of plastic, so they weigh a lot more. They are generally used to injure people, where as normal sounds bombs mostly disorient people. A few demonstrators were hit by the flying metal objects, but none seriously injured.

After about an hour people began to move back towards the village, the soldiers used this chance to shoot off cannister after cannister of tear gas. One man was taken away on a stretcher from his exposure to the gas. Activists stood on the opposite hill and regrouped while soldiers continued to shoot gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Twice the army drove up the street to try and grab people but were stopped by makeshift stone roadblocks people built.

Near the end of the demonstration, army snipers shot Bil’in Popular Committee member Abdullah Abu Rahme in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet. Abdullah was also one of the activists hospitalized a week ago when settlers attacked a group of Palestinians who were non-violently protesting the placement of more caravans on their land. After the soldier shot Abdullah, he tells his comrades-in-arms that he “got one in the head!” as if it were a game.

IMC: Weekly Friday Demonstrations

Edited from: https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8310/index.php
Original text by: Ilan Sharif

The Friday demonstration at the 443 apartheid highway

About 150 Israelis started their way to the demonstration before noon from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other parts of the country – less than half succeeded to arrive to the site of the demonstration because of roadblocks setup by Israeli police.

At the meeting point in Tel Aviv, two cars of police and intelligence were present from the beginning of the convergence. They followed the bus most of the demonstrators were on, and at the Rantis road block in the occupied territories, they blocked its way together with the forces present there, without even bothering to show any document authorizing them to do it. (The document was shown to other comrades when their car was blocked on another road block.)


The demonstrators got down from the bus and demonstrated near the road block. During this demonstration the traffic on the road continued, but the police pushed and hit demonstrators and even detained three of them for hours – releasing them after interrogation.

The joint demonstration of the Palestinian villagers and the Israeli participants did take place, and was subject to vicious violence by the Israeli state forces. The army attacked the protest with sound bombs, tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets and injured seven people – two were taken to the hospital.


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Bil’in

The Friday demonstration – the 151st since 22d February 2005 was as it’s usually been these last few months. We marched from the center of the village towards the gate of the separation fence under a drifting sky. We had a short presence at the foot of the hill the gate is on – as the Israeli state force forbade the approach towards the gate. After a while they showered us with tear gas, the commander of the state forces claimed we were not complying to his whims. A prolonged confrontation followed this between stone throwers and the state forces.

This week no one was detained or seriously wounded. The heavy rain started at the end of the confrontation and made riding home a challenge.
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Um Salamona

At the Bethlehem region, 200 Palestinian, international and Israeli activists, marched against the illegal wall being built on land stolen by the Israeli army from the villagers of Um Salamona, located near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The protesters marched from the village towards the nearby settlers’ road (known as Road 60) that cuts the village of Um Salamona off from its land. A year ago Israel started to build the annexation wall on village land.

The protest marked the one year anniversary of nonviolent resistance to the annexation wall in that village. Local villagers held Friday prayers on the settlers’ road then speeches were delivered. Israeli troops arrived in the area but did not attack protesters. The action finished shortly thereafter.

*UPDATED* (With Original Video of Attack) Two Badly Injured as Bil’in Residents Attempt to Thwart Settler Land Grab

On January 1st, Mohammed Khatib and Abdullah Abu Rahme of the Bil’in popular committee were badly beaten by settlers while non-violently attempting to stop the positioning of a settlement outpost on village land. Abdullah was released from Sheik Zaid hospital the same night, Mohammed returned home later the next day. Cameraman Emad Bornat was beaten also but escaped with footage of the attack after settlers destroyed his camera.

Settlers arrived around 7pm and placed a caravan on the land of Bil’in, creating an outpost to the illegal settlement of Modi’in Illit. The aim of the outpost seems to be to stop the army moving the Annexation Wall further East to give Bil’in some of its land back, as per the Supreme Court decision awarded in September. The settlers are calling the caravan a synagogue in an attempt to make it harder to remove by the Israeli military, a common practice in the West Bank.

The settlers were attempting to place a second caravan when Mohammed and Abdullah, together with Emad, quickly arrived on the scene and sat down under the caravan, preventing the settlers from securing the structure. Many other Bil’in residents arrived soon afterwards but were prevented from accessing the site by soldiers at the gate through the apartheid wall, which runs directly through Bil’ins land.

Armed settlers approached the group and were overheard saying “lets break his head” in Hebrew by an Israeli talking on the phone to Mohammed before the attack. The settlers then proceeded to attack the group, breaking Emad’s camera, who then left to protect the film inside. Over an hour after they were called, the police arrived and broke up the assault, but did not force the settlers to remove the structures, which were secured down after Mohammed and Abdullah were badly beaten. An Israeli activist arriving on the scene called for an Israeli ambulance, but the ambulance was not allowed to take them to an Israeli hospital, instead they had to wait at the Nahalin checkpoint for a Palestinian ambulance to arrive and finally take them to hospital.

According to official sources, two Palestinians and two settlers were arrested. In fact, no one was arrested, but the police offered to ‘look into doing so’ if the victims wish to press charges. Police also said the structures would be removed in the morning. The caravans were taken down early Thursday morning.

Mohammed Khatib and Abdullah Abu Rahme, members of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, are among the leaders of Bil’in’s three year nonviolent struggle to save Bil’in’s land from Israel’s Wall and settlement expansion. Bil’in’s nonviolent struggle has gained support from Israeli and international human rights activists, received significant Israeli, Arab and international media coverage, and has spread to neighboring Palestinian communities.

Activists call for Boycott of Leviev during weekly Bil’in protest

Friday, December 28, 2008

After Friday prayers, the people of Bil’in marched out in a mass public demonstration, joined by a number of international and Israeli solidarity activists, holding Palestinian flags and signs criticizing the building of colonies and the wall. The Popular Committee (Against the Wall and Settlements of Bil’in) expressed its opposition and resistance to the building of settlements/colonies because they stand as an obstacle to the creation of a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.

The Popular Committee also called for a boycott of Lev Leviev, a business man who supports the building of colonies in the West Bank, noting that Leviev invests in building developments in at least four colonies on occupied Palestinian lands, and that the colonies violate international law.

Lev Leviev undertakes the building of illegal colonies in the villages of Bil’in and Jayyous, in addition to the colonies of Ma’ale Adumim and Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghuneim), and is involved in the destruction of the olive groves and farms that form the livelihood of these villages, partaking in the violation of human rights for material profit.

The Popular Committee has joined Adalah-NY in expanding its campaign against Leviev to Dubai, where Leviev intends to open a third branch of his jewelry chain, after the opening of his branches in London and New York. The demonstrations in opposition to Leviev and the colonies spread to London last week, where Palestinian and British activists organized a similar campaign.

The protesters called out chants with the same message of opposition, as they marched through the streets of the village. When the protesters approached the additional barbed wire laid by the army, the army began to warn them via loudspeakers against crossing the barbed wire. However, even before the army finished their warnings, the soldiers began throwing tear gas and sound grenades at the protesters, as well as firing rubber-coated bullets at them, which caused injury to tens of protesters. Two solidarity activists were injured, one French and the other Italian; but they refused to disclose their names for fear of pursuit by the Israeli occupation forces.

For more information please contact:
Abdallah Abu Rahmeh
Coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements of Bil’in
0599 107 059 or 0547 258 210