Tag: Ni’lin

Every day in Palestine

By Jonas

Every day Mahmoud takes his sheep and goats out to the fields that his family has used and been bound to through blood and sweat for generations. Every day he is met by violence and threats of violence by the ultra-orthodox settlers who live two hills away, who say that the land is theirs because it was given the by their God four thousand years ago. Every day he is forced from his lands by the soldiers of the occupation forces who are protecting the illegal settlers. Every day he loses the fight for the land that is his, his only way of surviving. Every night he and his wonderful family sleep in a tiny tent without water, electricity and plumbing because they’ve been refused building rights on their own land for forty years – while the settlers two hills away are provided with every resource by the state of Israel.

But every night he goes with his brothers and their children to the football field and he becomes Mahmoud Maradona, and laughs like crazy with joy when he scores in the light of the setting sun over the hills of south Hebron.

Every Friday Fatima sees her son Hassan go at the head of the demonstration that marches from her house towards the illegal wall that Israel is building across their land, the wall that is destroying their olive groves and taking away their right to travel freely in their own land. One of her sons was killed by the military, and another but in prison while non-violently expressing his disgust and protest against the occupation. Every Friday she knows that Hassan maybe won’t come back, since every Friday for the past months he has been arrested and held for four days by the military. Every day her family lives under constant harassment from the soldiers.

But every Friday Hassan is home again, and Fatima offers her friends and international activists sweet tea and laughs, and shares her warmth, her joy of life and her inexhaustible fighting spirit – telling us about the occupation and what it is doing to her people and her children.

Every day Mustafa’s father goes to the wall in Ni’lin. Every day he comes home with eyes that are red from teargas. Mustafa, who is four years old, had a teargas grenade fired into his home last week when the army occupied Ni’lin, and since then he plays a lot with an onion – onion is used to counter teargas. Every guest that comes into his home gets to play with his onion. When the grenade exploded he was silent for a long time, marked by the fear of the grownups that they will lose seventy percent of the olive trees that have been in their ancestors planted centuries ago. Every day his father has to tell him that the soldiers who came into their home and who occupied the village are friends, and that they are just playing. Mustafa has seen more weapons in his four years than I will in my entire life.

But when we are invited for dinner he plays with us, he laughs and flirts and charms us, he gives us his onion and sits a while peacefully in his father’s lap.

These people fill me with such awe and admiration that I have a hard time finding the right words. They welcome us into their homes, they give us of the little they have and say that we are brave who come here. I feel ashamed when they do – we are going home in three weeks or two months but they have no choice, they will fight the occupation until they die or until they win the peace that they always speak of, the peace that is ever present in their language.

Again I must say: the occupation is illegal. Collective punishment is a war crime. Destroying and breaking down an entire people is a crime against humanity. The wall is illegal, declared so in international courts of law. What Israel is doing to the Palestinian people is comparable to what happened in South Africa. This is Apartheid, and it will not stop until the world sees it for what it is and puts pressure on Israel to stop it.

But the Palestinian people will never give up.

Maa’salama – Peace be with you

Jonas, in Ni’lin, West Bank

Israeli medical team detained at Ni’lin checkpoint

On the 11th July, a team of 22 Israeli medical volunteers from “Physicians for Human Rights” where stopped and detained at the Ni’lin checkpoint, wanting to participate in a free medical day in Ni’lin to provide free health-care to villagers.

Physicians for Human Rights has for a long time worked together with the “Palestinian medical relief” and gives free medical help to people affected by the occupation, both inside and outside the occupied territories. Today when they reached the checkpoint they where stopped and questioned and then detained for around 2 hours. One of the doctors reported soldiers saying that this was done to punish Ni’lin for the continuing demonstrations. This was the third time the team visited Nilin this year, the big presence is due to the difficult situation.

Two peaceful demonstrations in Ni’lin, violently dispersed by the Israeli army

On Friday the 11th of July, in the village of Ni’lin on the West bank, two non-violent demonstrations were violently dispersed by the Israeli army using rubber bullets, teargas, flares and sound bombs.

Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of internationals and Israeli activists were driven away from their peaceful manifestations against the apartheid wall which will steal 70% of the villages land if constructed as planned. Army violence resulted in one injured and one Palestinian arrested and the soldiers set fire to the villages’ olive groves, destroying at least forty trees.

Protesters gathered for a weekly prayer demonstration close to the construction site of Israel’s apartheid wall were driven away shortly after prayer ended, as the Israeli army moved in a disproportional response to a few boys throwing stones towards the nearby checkpoint at the entrance to the village of Ni’lin. The army fired teargas and rubber bullets towards the crowd of peaceful demonstrators. Teargas canisters set fire to the olive groves, destroying more than forty trees in an inferno that was only kept at bay by the quick response of villagers.

Later the same night, villagers once again marched toward the construction site in a planned demonstration to make noise close to the illegal settlements behind the construction site of the apartheid wall. Villagers tried to construct roadblocks to stop the bulldozers from working, but were very soon driven back by heavy Israeli military violence. Eyewitnesses reported massive amounts of rubber bullets fired into the darkness were villagers, including children, and a few internationals were gathered. One Palestinian was arrested and at least one was injured. Once again the army set fire to olive trees by firing light- and sound bombs at the demonstrators.

The village of Ni’lin was recently invaded and put under curfew by the Israeli Occupation Forces, after two months of non-violent protests against the building of the annexation wall across the villages territory, a construction which if not hindered will result in the loss of around 70% of the villages’ farmland.

Many injured in mass demonstration in Ni’lin

An estimated 400 Palestinians, internationals, Israeli activists and world media marched on the construction of the illegal apartheid that annexes much of the village of Ni’lin’s land.

Video courtesy of Israel Putermam.

The non-violent demonstrators, who were peacefully walking towards the wall were prevented by the Israeli army who shot at the group with teargas, sound bombs, rubber bullets and live ammunition from a distance. Those demonstrators that made it near to the construction site were brutally beaten by soldier wielding batons and using rifle butts as weapons.

One 70 year old American working with the Christian Peacemaker Team was shot in the lower back by a rubber bullet. Six Israeli activists were severely beaten by batons, one activist was rifle butted in the head, another suffered injuries that will disable him for a week caused by a baton-wielding Israeli boarder guard, two others had their hands broken and another was hit in the head by searing hot teargas cannister that was fired as a projectile weapon. The latter needed several stitches.

As the protesters were dispersing, the Israeli army continued firing rubber bullets and multiple tear gas canisters into the crowd containing children and the elderly. The hot canisters caught fire in the dry grass of the farmers orchards and quickly spread. Protesters tried in vain to quell the , the Israeli continued to bombard the makeshift fire rescue teams with more tear gas, starting new fires. By the time the fires had been put out more than fifteen trees were burnt beyond salvation. This is the worst in a long series of Israeli acts violence towards the villagers on Ni’lin who have suffered an illegal occupation, curfew and land-grab by the state of Israel.

During first demonstration since the siege, Ni’lin again stop construction of the apartheid wall

On Wednesday 9th July, on the second day after the lifting of the Israeli army’s siege of Ni’lin, the villagers gathered for a demonstration, marking the fourth anniversary of The Hague ruling which defined the Apartheid Wall illegal.

Video courtesy of Israel Putermam

Around 250 people marched through the fields and eventually reached one of the bulldozers on the construction site.

The Palestinian demonstrators managed to disable the bulldozer before soldiers arrived to dissolve the demonstration. The driver of the bulldozer got out of the vehicle and proceeded in throwing stones at the protesters. The soldiers fired live ammunition into the air, and fired large amounts of tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs at the demonstrators. Meanwhile a group of women and girls arrived, carrying banners.

After the demonstration had dissolved people gathered in the streets of the village, though the soldier’s closed in on the residents. The soldiers shot more rubber bullets and tear gas, shooting at people as well as into homes. After about two hours the army’s attacks came to an end.

In the course of the events a total of four people were arrested, Hassan Yousef Mosa, Ahman Mostafam Khawaja, Wisam Mostafa Khawaja, Abdo, Saeéd Abood. All of them during the demonstration at the site of the wall. Hassan Yousef Mosa was badly abused. The soldiers first surrounded him, after they beat him up they threw teargas at and arrested him. By that time they had to carry him because he was so badly injured. 7 other people were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and teargas, five of them from Ni’lin, one reporter and one Israeli activist.