Tag: Bil’in

by the ISM media team, January 26th

Today’s sun-drenched demonstration in Bil’in was marked by the usual Occupation violence as the media and peaceful protesters alike were frequently forced to run for cover and attacked as they were doing so.

The theme of today’s weekly demo was the ongoing annexation of the land around the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem for Israeli colonies. Banners bore messages condemning the takeover of this holy Muslim site. Soon after the marchers reached the gate in the wall and started chanting some children threw stones at the soldiers who responded by shooting rubber bullets at them.

After the stone throwing soon stopped many soldiers came through the gate and attempted to disperse the peaceful demonstrators and media gathered with them. As well as the normal orange sound bombs the IOF experimented with a black metal sound bomb that explodes in the air. An international photographer was deafened by a sound bomb exploding beside him and hadn’t recovered his hearing in one ear by the end of the demo. Children started throwing stones at the soldiers again and one demonstrator was hit in the leg with a stone.

When it was clear the protesters weren’t going to disperse the IOF started grabbing hold of and pushing to the ground villagers telling them to leave. When the demonstration was over the IOF pursued those retreating as usual with sound bombs and tear gas, and forced them to walk through the crossfire of stone throwing and military violence. As in previous weeks the IOF refused to let the protesters walk around out of harm’s way, effectively using them as human shields.

One Palestinian was shot in the head with a sound grenade suffering mild concussion and had his head bandaged. Another Palestinian was shot in the back with a tear gas cannister and was also treated on the spot. Altogether eight people suffered injuries.

by the ISM media team, January 19th

Mohammed Khatib being arrested

Brutality towards children was the theme of today’s weekly demonstration in Bil’in. In light of this theme many children walked hand in hand with other demonstrators as they chanted anti-apartheid sentiments while proceeding toward the Apartheid Wall.

Around 70 Palestinian, Israeli, and International activists marched to the gate in the wall where they started chanting and asking to be allowed through. Many activists began pulling the razor wire from the gate, symbolizing Bil’in’s continuing resistance to the wall that has annexed their land. The IOF soldiers quickly fired tear gas at the non-violent activists dispersing most of the crowd.

They continued their hostile assault on those retreating with round after round of tear gas and sound bombs, showing greater than usual animosity towards a peaceful and relatively small crowd. The soldiers fired into the crowd, frequently with particular intent towards the children present at the demonstration.

Several activists walked through the gate when soldiers opened it and they were quickly rebuffed by the IOF soldiers. One Israeli activist was repeatedly thrown against a chain-link fence by the soldiers and he fell to the ground limp. A group of several soldiers held his body down while others began to violently beat the activist with their batons while kicking him in the stomach.

A second Israeli activist suffered the same fate. He was thrown to the ground, his head held, while a gang of soldiers beat his struggling body. Both Israeli men, a third Israeli, and member of the Popular Committee in Bil’in Mohammed Khatib, were arrested during the demonstration, but later released.

As the demonstrators began to disperse up the road they came across a second group of soldiers standing on higher ground firing sound bombs and tear gas, as well as rubber bullets, into the olive groves were a group of children had congregated. The soldiers fired several canisters of tear gas into the road halting the traffic of activists and Palestinians wishing to move freely back to their homes and to the center of the village. Other canisters of tear gas were rifled directly into neighboring houses where Palestinian families, completely uninvolved with today’s demonstration, were made to suffer unnecessarily at the hands of aggressive and trigger-happy soldiers.

Four children were shot with rubber bullets and another child, Saji, was hit in the head with a baton and hospitalised. Many others suffered severe tear gas inhalation.

Today was a bitter reminder of the hostile and forceful occupying grip the IOF continues to exercise on the village of Bi’lin.

by the ISM media team

UPDATE, Saturday 13th : Emilio, the Spanish AP journalist injured by a concussion grende in Bil’in yesterday, is still in hospital in Ramallah where his injuries have been identified as more serious than at first assumed in that he has a broken leg. In a further development, Ashraf from Bil’in, who has lived at the outpost for the past year, was detained today for three hours at the Wall on his way to the outpost as a punishment, according to the soldiers, for participating in yesterday’s demo. Access to their land on the other side of the Wall is becoming increasingly difficult for Bil’in villagers and their supporters.

Today in Bil’in one hundred internationals and local villagers gathered to protest the apartheid wall running through the village. The theme of today’s demo was solidarity with Maan News Agency photographer Fadi Arouri who was shot in the stomach with live ammo during a recent IOF invasion into Ramallah.

As soon as the march reached the gate in the Wall the IOF fired tear gas at the peaceful demonstrators. After about ten minutes of chanting slogans opposing military violence, some of the local children started throwing stones but were quickly stopped by village adults. This was met quickly with tear gas and concussion grenades by the IOF. Some activists tried to dismantle the razor wire.

As the IOF began to open the gate in the wall and move forward, many internationals and locals attempted to block the entrance of IOF jeeps. They were beaten with clubs, shoved, tripped and generally roughed up by the IOF.

At least five people were injured including one old man, who needed treatment from a medic, and an AP journalist who was injured in the leg with shrapnel from a concussion grenade. Villager Wael Nasser was hospitalised after being beaten in the head with a baton. The jeeps invaded the village firing rubber bullets and tear gas at children and returning groups of protesters.

by the ISM media team, December 9th

The Israeli High Court of ‘Justice’ today gave its decision concerning the request of construction companies “Heftsiba” and the Canadian-registered Green Park to overturn the temporary injunction forbidding building in the Matityahu East colony, and to legitimize a planning process that would launder an illegal road built by the construction companies. The case was heard at a hearing on January 7th.

Judges Prokachya, Rivlin and Na’or decided to allow “Heftsiba” to retrospectively change the new scheme for the colony (scheme 210/8/1) and to mark the road already built as a temporary road. At the same time, the judges decided to order Green Park and Heftsiba to pay expenses of 100,000 shekels for contempt and violating the temporary injunction issued by Court.

This is yet another example of the theft of Palestinian land being sanctioned at the highest level by Israeli authorities. The whole of the Matityahu East colonist block was built on Bil’in village land and the whole of the colony of Mod’in Ilit was built on the land of Bil’in and neighbouring villages. Mod’in Ilit is now the largest colony in the West Bank with a population of 35,000 after 4,000 new colonists moved there in 2006.

Click here for YNet coverage.

by the ISM media team, January 8th

Over four months ago the construction company responsible for the illegal Israeli settlement of Matityahu East started carrying out an earlier High Court Order which ruled that the company restore part of the land to its pre-colonial state. Two structures were demolished and part of an access road to the illegal settlement was dug up in this ‘enclave’. All expansion plans for the settlement have been frozen until the court rules on the status of this access road. Yesterday’s hearing was part of a motion filed by the ‘Peace Now’ movement.

In their attempt to legalize retrospectively the construction of the settlement, which is illegal even according to Israeli law, settler and company lawyers argued for the lifting of the Stop Work order and the restoration of the access road. The lawyers argued that settlers had experienced great difficulties due to the lack of an access road and that on one occasion a fire engine had been unable to reach the colony to rescue someone trapped in a lift.

The ‘Peace Now’ lawyer, Michael Sfard, pointed out the past criminal activity of the construction company in not acting according to Israeli law, and that the access road isn’t even part of the revised expansion plans for the settlement. Despite this public exposure, the construction company and settlers expect to continue pursuing their own expansion plans without regard for Israeli law. A ruling is to be given later.