Tag: Ni’lin

Ni’lin holds two consecutive demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall

December 26, 2008

On Friday 26th December, around 250 protesters turned out for the Friday prayer demonstration against the Apartheid wall in Ni´lin. There was a large international and Israeli presence there in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The prayer started around noon followed by a march towards the construction site. The protesters were met by a barrage of tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets from the Israeli army who were waiting for the demonstration. The scattered the protesters who were split into two main groups, one who remained in the field and the other who moved to the checkpoint at the entrance of the town.

Many people suffered from tear gas inhalation with many also hit by rubber-coated steel bullets. There was a highly increased amount of teargas fired, most of which were aimed directly at the bodies of the protesters. Since mid-November the army also has been using an extension which can fire multiple round plastic covered steel bullets. Luckily no one was severely injured.

The demonstration continued until five o´clock.

The townspeople have been protesting on a regular basis since May 2008 against the construction of the Apartheid wall, which will annex another 40% of Ni’lin’s land accumulating a loss of around 85% of its land since 1948. Two children have been killed and hundreds of others have been injured by teargas, sound grenades and rubber coated steel bullets. 31 people are currently imprisoned, six of them are children, and many of them without legitimate charges.

Ni’lin – Thursday 25th of December

About 40 protesters vigilantly march down to the road to the construction site of the wall in monsoon like rain. After about 15 minutes soldiers arrived and started to shoot tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets. The army came close to the town and shot tear gas at the nearby houses.

The demonstration started around noon and ended at three o´clock. Two people were hit by rubber coated steel bullet, one of them in the head who required two stitches. Many others where asphyxiated by tear gas.

Three residents of Ni’lin arrested during night invasion

December 22, 2008

At 2.30 am on the 22nd of December, more than 100 soldiers invaded the village of Ni’lin, abducting three people in their homes. A fourth person they were looking for was not captured. The three arrested were:

Saeed Ibrahim Mustafa Amireh, 17

Mohammed Daoud Husain Khawaja, 17

Mohammed Abdallah Yousef Amireh, 32

At the house of Saeed Amireh the soldiers came by foot and surrounded the house. Approximately 25 soldiers entered the home searching for evidence to connect the family to participation in the resistance against the construction of the wall, yet they found nothing. During the raid the Israeli army put the whole family of ten in one room. After harassing the family for an hour and a half, Saeed was arrested and taken to Ofer prison.

One of the soldiers said in Arabic to Saeed’s father Ibrahim Amireh, “we arrested you two months ago, now we are here to take your son”. Saeed’s father, who is a member of the Popular Committee of Ni’lin, was arrested on the 14th of August also during a night invasion of Israeli soldiers in the village. He was imprisoned and daily interrogated during 16 days and then released. This resulted in him losing his permit to work in Israel.

At 2.30 the army came to the house of Mohammed Khawaja, 17 years old. First they went to his brother’s home downstairs, where they entered and searched the house. They did not find Mohammed so they went upstairs and arrested him immediately. One soldier searched the house looking for evidence in connection with the popular resistance. As it was a swift arrest the parents didn’t have a chance to give him extra clothes, Mohammed has also been taken to Ofer Prisoner Camp, near Ramallah.

At around 3am, 20 soldiers came to Mohammed Abdallah Yousef Amirehs house and called him out, before then arresting him. They also entered his mother’s house downstairs harassing her and searching her house. They took him by foot to the checkpoint from were he was taken to Ofer Prisoner Camp. He is the father of five small children. Without him his family have no income.

During the arrests two jeeps were parked outside the municipality in the village centre. Around ten soldiers stood shooting teargas and sound bombs towards the surrounding houses. They used flares to see if there were any people outside. The army finally left the village at around 5am.

Israeli forces invade Ni’lin regularly in order to arrest people who have been active in the popular resistance against the Annexation Wall being built on their lands. Since the start of the construction of the Annexation Wall in April 2008, more than 60 villagers have been arrested. Out of the 60 held 31 are still in jail, six of them under the age of 18.

The wall annexes 23 hectares of agricultural land from the village. In addition to the wall, two tunnels that are planned that will act as the only entrances in and out of Ni’lin will annex a further 2 hectares.

432 hectares of farming land have already been annexed by the Israeli state since 1948 leaving Ni’lin with only 23 hectares of land that includes the land the village houses are build on.

When the Annexation Wall is finished it will completely encircle the village together with two roads that can only be used by Israelis. The construction turns Ni’lin into a small enclave closed off from the rest of the West Bank.

Excluding Saeed and Mohammed, 4 other children have been imprisoned and so far, they have been held for more than a month. They are:

Ibrahim Khalqel, 16

Majed Hisham Nafea, 17

Sufyan Khawaja, 17

Mohammad Ata Mousa, 14 – On Wednesday 17th December Mohammed Mousa was sentenced to four months and fined 2000 NIS (starting from the day he was arrested).

These children have had their education interrupted and they risk losing a school term. Saeed and Mohammad have been arrested just one week before their final exams of the semester. This is another strategy from Israel to make the daily life increasingly difficult for the Palestinian population, particularly those involved in popular resistance against the occupation.

These latest arrests mark a continuation of the Israeli policy of arrests of those believed to be involved in demonstrations against the Wall.

Ni’lin hold shoe demonstration against the occupation

19th December 2008

At noon on Friday 19th December, around 150 protesters from the village of Ni’lin, joined by international and Israeli solidarity activists, gathered in the village to protest against the construction of the Apartheid Wall being built on Ni’lin’s land.

This demonstration took the form of a prayer protest on land close to the construction of the Wall. The demonstrators then tried to reach the construction site in order to physically stop the construction where they held up shoes on sticks towards the Israeli forces, following the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George Bush.

Protesters then assembled road-blocks leading to the construction site in order to delay the building of the Apartheid Wall.

Even though international and Israeli activists where present, live ammunition was fired by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

During the demonstration the Israeli soldiers damaged several buildings in the village. Two of the buildings had windows broken, one of them had four tear-gas cannisters shot though a window. A third house had a water pipe and its solar cells destroyed by the soldiers firing at the property.

A lot of teargas was fired in the demonstration and the violence from the soldiers resulted in ten injuries. Seven people were injured due to rubber-coated steel bullets and three from gas inhalation.

Two members of the press were injured, one of them was shot two times in his knee by rubber-coated steel bullets, despite clearly wearing a vest with “PRESS” written on it.

The other man was a TV reporter who fainted from tear-gas inhalation. When medicals tried to help him they also where targeted with tear-gas which resulted in one of ambulance personnel losing consciousness. Israeli forces were also witnessed targeting the ambulance that was hit with several rounds of tear-gas causing damage to the vehicle.

Friday demonstration against the illegal apartheid wall in Ni’lin

On Friday 12 December 2008 at 12 o’clock approximately 200 villagers from Ni’lin together with 15 internationals and Israelis protested against the construction of Israel’s illegal Apartheid Wall on their land.

The level of violence from the Israeli army was high from the beginning of the demonstration. They shot live ammunition in the air regularly for the entire 5 and half hours the protest lasted. The shots increased in the last hour when soldiers were very close to the protesters who were pushed back to the outer houses in the village from the olive field.

Huge amounts of round, plastic coated steel bullets, rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas were shot at the demonstration, starting even before the demonstrators had gathered by the local clinic.

At least 10 demonstrators including two Swedish and a Scottish solidarity activist were hit with plastic and rubber coated steel bullets. Tear gas was also shot at people’s homes, two of which had to be evacuated due to the gas.

Today’s demonstration started with a prayer by the local clinic. Nine Soldiers were already present on a hill top in front of the clinic and started shooting tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at the children in the fields about half an hour before the prayer started.

Members of the Popular Committee changed the protest route to avoid the tear gas and the non-violent demonstrators got almost all the way down to the construction site of the illegal apartheid wall before the army stopped them.

The army shot live ammunition in the air and plastic coated steel bullets at head height to push back the protest.

When the demonstrators were pushed back to the village the army continued the use of live ammunition.

The soldiers shot round steel bullets covered in a thin layer of plastic at the heads of the demonstrators. A 15-year-old boy was hit right under the eye with such a bullet and had to have six stitches at the local clinic.

One family had a window broken by a tear gas canister causing an old woman and two children to suffer from heavy tear gas inhalation.

A woman in another house fainted when gas was fired into her home.

B’Tselem have previously released a statement highlighting the use of rubber-coated steel bullets in Ni’lin.

The villagers of Ni’lin have protested against the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall since May 2008 that with its completion will annex more than 90 percent of their land. In August 10-year-old Ahmed was killed by a live bullet shot in his head from a short distance, at his funeral 17-year-old Yousef was also shot in the head with rubber coated steel bullets and later died at the hospital.

There is an Israeli military order for IOF forces to use live ammunition against Palestinian demonstrations unless internationals or Israelis are present.

In order to draw use from the clear racism in this law and attempt to give a level of security to the Palestinians who are using their right to protest, internationals have been present in solidarity with the Palestinians to every protest at Ni’lin.

Twelve people injured as Israeli forces attack Ni’lin prayer demonstration

Friday 5th December

Palestinian residents of Ni’lin gathered, together with Israeli and international activists, at 11.30am for the weekly demonstration held by the medical clinic close to the land due to be confiscated by Israel. Twelve people were injured during the demonstration.

Before the prayer ceremony was carried out, the Israeli army moved jeeps and many soldiers close to the site of the clinic. Once the prayer ceremony was over, heavy tear-gas kept the demonstrators from entering the fields. Protesters were kept from going further than approximately 30 meters from the village.

The army was very aggressive and shot a lot of teargas and rubber-coated steel-bullets, aiming directly at the non-violent protesters. They also fired at the houses closest to the fields, smashing peoples windows and scaring young children inside. The violence was such that one of the families had to evacuate their house.

Ten people needed medical treatment due to injuries by rubber-coated steel bullets, one of them shot in the head. Two ware treated after being hit by teargas-cannisters fired at them from close range. One of those injured by tear-gas was an international solidarity activist. The demonstration ended at 5pm.

In the West Bank village of Ni’lin, the resistance against the construction of a wall that will confiscate Palestinian land continues. The building of the Apartheid Wall will further assist in the deterioration of the lives of residents. The Wall will not only steal privately-owned land, but will ensure that Ni’lin residents will be more restricted in their movement, having to pass through a checkpoint to reach other villages.