Tag: Demonstration

Al Ma’asara demonstrates against the Wall built on the village’s land

20 November 2009

Some fifty Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators marched on Friday noon from the center of Al Ma’asara village towards the route of the Apartheid Wall that is to be built on village lands. Like every other Friday, demonstrators were stopped by Israeli soldiers and boarder police who laid barbed wire on the main road leading to the fence, forcefully preventing the march from proceeding. When asked if their actions had any legal basis, soldiers refused to answer.

Protesters then delivered speeches in Arabic, English and Hebrew, and called upon the soldiers to leave their weapons and join the non-violent struggle for two independent states and against war crimes committed by Israel. Slogans were chanted, and the joint drum band, made out of Israeli Qasamba drummers and the village children, played and cheered the demonstrators up.

During the demonstration several children managed to go around the barbed wire, but were pushed back by the soldiers. Some of them then tried to pull away the barbed wire fence with improvised ropes that were then cut by the soldiers. The children, however, did not give up, and eventually succeeded in tearing the fence apart, after which the soldiers decided to step up and physically push the demonstrators and threatened them with arrests.

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.

10-year-old Palestinian boy jailed for 11 hours

Ali Waked | YNet News

15 November 2009

Hussam Faisal Muhana, 10, heeded the calls made on Saturday over the loudspeakers throughout his village of Deir al-Ghusun near Tulkarem encouraging residents to participate in a demonstration against the separation fence.

Together with other children and youth from the village, he went to the demonstration. The children threw stones at the security forces that clashed with the demonstrators. Despite his young age, Muhana was arrested. “There were two soldiers there who beat me in the legs with a club. After that, they took me to Ariel,” the boy told Ynet the day after his arrest.

Still in shock, he didn’t know whether he was taken to a police station or to a military base. “In Ariel, they started to ask me, ‘Why do you throw stones?’ I told them, ‘Just because.'”

After his family and human rights groups learned that he had been arrested, they phoned the military and the police. “They took him to the Jabara Checkpoint. From there they told a taxi driver to take him home,” recounted the father, Abu Tarek. According to him, the driver was not from the village “and Hussam directed him how to get to our home.”

The father said that his son was in complete shock even the day after. “He arrived home after 10 pm, nearly 11 hours after he had been arrested. This is his first experience with the police and military. We didn’t even know that he went to the procession,” he said.

“He returned in shock and went immediately to sleep. This morning he also woke up very late, not like he usually does. Fortunately, there is a day off from school today because of the anniversary of the declaration of independence, so he can recover at home.”

Hussam himself said in a timid voice that he soldiers gave him water to drink and a pita with labaneh during the long hours of his arrest. According to him, the soldiers did not threaten him or curse him, “except for the blows they dealt me when they arrested me.”

Dozens of Palestinians, Israelis, and activists from around the world took part in the demonstration at which Hussam was arrested. According to the demonstrators, 18 people were arrested. The IDF, on the other hand, claims that only six people were arrested for lightly damaging the external gate of the separation fence.

The IDF reported that it is investigating the issue of Hussam Muhana’s arrest.

al-Ma’sara demonstrates against the Apartheid Wall

The al-Ma’sara Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements

13 November 2009

In memory of the fifth year since the death of Yaser Arafat, who was poisoned by the Israeli army, villagers of Al-Ma’sara gathered today along with Israeli and international activists in protest against the illegal Apartheid Wall and settlement building. The protesters raised Palestinian flags and banners demanding that farmers be allowed to access their lands to pick olives. As every Friday for the past three years, they were intercepted by Israeli soldiers who had put up a fence of barb wire at the entrance to the village, effectively cutting off the villager’s access to their lands.

Demonstrators chanted against the discriminatory policies of the occupation and reminded that only this morning, farmers who were picking olives on their lands in the surrounding villagers were harassed by settlers while Israeli soldiers stood by. In Arabic and English, protestors asked the soldiers to reconsider what they were doing and join those Palestinian, Israeli and international civilians on this side who abide by the international human rights and who work together for just peace.

Protestors attempted to remove the barb wire and continue their march towards their lands and the site of the Wall. A woman from the village asked the Israeli soldiers what they were doing here in her village and pushed them out of her way, succeeding in continuing her walk towards Um Salamoneh, defiantly carrying the Palestinian flag.

Eighteen Palestinian protestors arrested in Deir alGussoun demonstration

14 November 2009

ISM activists joined residents of Deir alGussoun today in a demonstration against the Apartheid Wall. The Wall cuts deep through the village’s land, located to the north of Tulkarem. In an extreme number of arrests, 18 Palestinian protestors were arrested by soldiers in the aftermath of the demonstration.

Meeting in Deir alGussoun this morning, approximately 50 protestors marched from the village towards the Wall, where Palestinian youth succeeded in forcing open the gates on the first of the series of three high fences comprising the Apartheid Wall in the Tulkarem area. Their efforts were met with sound bombs and tear grenades from the 3 army jeeps positioned on the other side of the fences.

The demonstration came to an end an hour later, after which demonstrators began constructing a stone road block on the dirt road leading back to the village, hoping to pre-empt a military entrance through the wall to the village following the protest. This was not enough to deter the army, as 18 youth were arrested, on charge of causing damage to the fence. None have been released as yet.

120 families of Deir alGussoun have been cut off from 2,500 dunams of land by the Wall’s construction, many of whom have never been given permission to access their land since. The Wall has been declared illegal under international law by International Court of Justice in the Hague.