Tag: Demonstration

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

In the continued spirit of resistance, 100 Palestinians along with several International and Israeli activists marched to demonstrate against the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin.

The demonstrators met around 15.30 and moved close to the construction site when Israeli soldiers began to scream at them to go back while throwing sound grenades. The demonstrators spread throughout the olive groves while the Israeli soldiers shot tear gas canisters directly at the people.

The soldiers continued to throw sound grenades, and shoot tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets until 18.00. When the soldiers left the construction site, many protesters went down to disrupt the day’s work on the wall.

Attempting to halt the building of the Apartheid Wall, which will annex much of Ni’in’s privately-owned land, demonstrators filled a recently cleared path for the wall with rocks. While the action of destroying the path was taking place, the soldiers returned to the site to shoot more gas and bullets.

The demonstrators went back towards the fields and the demonstration was declared over after the Israeli soldiers had left around 18.30. While most demonstrators suffered from tear gas inhalation, seven Palestinians were shot with rubber coated steel bullets.

The importance of the resistance in Ni’lin is apparent with continuous demonstrations taking place against the Apartheid Wall.

The non-violent resistance continues in Ni’lin, as the demonstrations are consistently taking place against the apartheid wall. On Friday, October 3rd, around 200 people participated in the weekly prayer demonstration that followed the Friday prayer in the fields of the village. After the prayer took place at noon; village residents, members of the village popular committee, ISM activists, members of IWPS, and Israeli activists began to slowly approach the road where Israel’s Apartheid Wall is being built.

The wall is meant to annex a large portion of Ni’lin’s remaining land to protect and expand nearby settlements. The Israeli soldiers that based themselves on the hills across the valley began to shoot tear gas at the demonstrators as they marched toward the construction area. At the same time around 50 Israeli settlers showed their support to the Apartheid wall by holding a rally on the other side of the valley.

Seeing this, the demonstrators began to move towards the settlers and after a short while they got attacked again with a heavier amount of tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. At least seven people were injured by tear gas and rubber bullets. As the tear gas canisters were being constantly fired into dry bushes, the fire brigade needed to put out several fires. The soldiers did not distinguish between the demonstrators and the ambulance team or the fire team and fired directly at those trying to help the demonstrators.

After about two hours of resisting the rubber bullets and tear gas attacks by the Israeli soldiers and after one army jeep hunted demonstrators through their own olive gardens, the demonstrators spread out and went back to the village. One of the ISM activists was grabbed by the soldiers during their incursion into the fields. She was put next the military jeep and told not to move, but managed to walk away when they failed to provide evidence for an arrest.

On the 23rd September at about 11:00 Ahed Khawajeh, Salah Khawajeh, Mohammed Amira, 5 EU Parliament representatives and the head of the municipality Ayman Nefeah went to the fields to show the Parliament members the impact of the apartheid wall before a planned demonstration.

Photo by Iyad Haddad

The Israeli army approached them and told them to go back to the village because they were not allowed on their land. They showed them an order for the area to be a ‘Closed Military Zone’, and threatened to use rubber-coated steel bullets. As they were walking back, a soldier shot a tear gas canister from about 25 metres hitting Ahed and breaking the bone between his eyes. As the others helped Ahed the soldiers barraged them with more tear gas. Luckily no one else was seriously hurt and Ahed reached the Ni’lin medical clinic. He was transferred to Sheikh Zaid Hospital in Ramallah where he remains in a stable condition, but with eyes swollen to an extent that he can not open them at this moment.

Photo by Iyad Haddad

At about 13:00 a group of about 50 protesters both Palestinian and international walked to the fields to protest the construction of the wall, which will annex another 40% of Ni’lin’s land accumulating a loss of around 85% of it’s land since 1948. As the protesters reached the road, (prepared for the wall) on the village’s side of the valley, unprovoked, the army started shooting tear gas directly at the demonstrators from the road on the opposite side of the valley. Some people suffered from gas inhalation but amazingly no one was hit by the cannisters. The demonstration spread around the fields with significant activity in the fields close to the medical clinic. Many rubber bullets were fired along with more tear gas and sound grenades. At about 15:30 the soldiers, who numbered around 20, left by foot and by hummer. People were later treated for injuries from rubber bullets, contact with metal gas cannisters, tear gas inhalation.

At 12.30pm on Wednesday September 17th, approximately 250 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals gathered in Ni’lin to protest against the construction of the illegal apartheid wall and in memory of the victims of the massacre in Shabra and Shatila in 1982.

Photos courtesy of Activestills

The Israeli army attempted to stop the non violent protesters before they got out of the village by shooting tear gas and sound bombs directly without provocation.

Five Palestinians were injured by rubber coated steel bullets, 2 hit by tear gas canisters and one Israeli was badly beaten up and hit in his bag with a sound bomb.

5 Israelis were detained, but all of them are now released.

Before today’s demonstration the Neturei Karta held a speech to the villagers of Ni’lin condemning the annexation of their land and praising their resistance. They ended their speech by giving flowers to the village in memory of those killed during the massacre in Shabra and Shatila in 1982.

The Israeli army blocked the protesters in a field directly outside the village. They shot tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and sound bombs at the non violent protesters who were pressured back into the village.

Two groups of protesters managed to get around the soldiers and ran to the construction site of the illegal apartheid wall where they stopped the bulldozers for 10 minutes.

The aggression from the army increased after this and they immediately started shooting rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas cannisters directly at the protesters from a close distance. Five Palestinians were hit by rubber coated steel bullets and two by tear gas cannisters.

The soldiers beat up one Israeli man who protested in solidarity with the villagers. When he finally escaped their brutality they threw a sound bomb at his back.

The attacks continued all the way back into the village where the soldiers shot tear gas directly at any one who moved in the streets.

The completion of the illegal apartheid wall will leave the villagers of Ni’lin with only 4% of the land they owned before 1948. In addition to the apartheid wall Israel plans to build a tunnel under the apartheid road leading to the nearby settlements. The tunnel will be the only way in and out of Ni’lin. It will close every night at 7pm and is possible to close of with only one military jeep. This will have huge economic as well as social consequences for the villagers of Ni’lin.

In 1982 September 16, Israeli army in co-operation with Lebanese terrorists were instrumental in a massacre on the Palestinian refugee camps Shabra and Shatila in Lebanon that killed thousands of Palestinians.