Tag: Ni’lin

By Kim Bullimore (www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com)

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Photos courtesy of IWPS and Activestills

Ni’lin village has become the latest village to begin organising demonstrations against the building of the apartheid wall and the stealing of their farm land by the Israeli state.

The village is located in the Ramallah district, approximately 10 kilometres from the village of Bil’in which has conducted a non-stop struggle against the confiscation of their land and the building of the apartheid wall on their land for the past three years.

In 2003, other villages in the region, including Budrus, Al Midya, Deir Qadddis and Kharbata led the struggle in non-violent resistance against the wall, holding daily and/or weekly demonstrations. Budrus became one of the first villages to successful win an Israeli court order for the apartheid wall to be pushed back to the Green Line.

In the last week of May 2008, construction began once again on the land belonging to Ni’lin village in order to build the apartheid wall. Since construction began, the village has held large demonstrations nearly every second day. The village has been joined in their demonstrations by international solidarity activists and Israeli anti-occupation activists.

In response to the demonstrations, the Israel military have reacted with extreme violence, including firing massive amounts of teargas from new weaponry mounted on jeeps. The weaponry consists of cannons which are capable of firing between 10 and 15 teargas canisters simultaneously.

The biggest of the demonstrations, which happened last week, have involved around 500 people, the majority from the village of Ni’lin.

On Friday night, the village held an innovative protest in which they assembled close to the fence line of the illegal Israeli settlement of Hashmon’im with pots and pans banging them to signal the poverty that Palestinians were suffering. They were also “armed” with other noise makers such as whistles and sirens to represent they would not be quite and accept the stealing of their land.

On June 8, approximately 120 Palestinian, Israeli and International demonstrators marched to Nil’in’s fields in an attempt to stop the destruction of their land. The non-violent demonstration was met with force by the Israeli military, who opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators. The front line of the demonstration, which was made up of Israeli anti-occupation activists, many from the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, were less then 10 metres from the soldiers.

The Israeli soldiers, in violation of their own military regulations, fired directly into the front line An Israeli photo-journalist activist was hit by a teargas canister at close range, inflicting a deep wound near his hip. A number of times during the demonstration, canisters in large numbers fired at waist level, whizzed myself and other activists. A Palestinian activist and an Israeli anti-occupation from Anarchists Against the Wall were detained and arrested by the Israeli military.

Ni’lin village has vowed to continue its demonstrations against the confiscation of their farm land and the building of the apartheid wall.

Villagers from Ni’lin defied an Israeli military curfew today to converge on the site where the apartheid Wall is being constructed on village lands.

Some 200 villagers – men, women and children – together with international and Israeli solidarity activists, peacefully marched to the site where two bulldozers are clearing prime farmland and tearing up olive trees to make way for construction of the Wall.

Predictably, the non-violent protesters were met with heavy violence by the approximately 50 Israeli soldiers facilitating the construction work, who began firing tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated bullets at the demonstrators.

Scores of olive trees were set ablaze as the tear gas canisters landed on dry grassland. Five people were injured, including Hilal Abdel Khader, who was beaten on the back with rifles by Israeli soldiers. One other person was injured after being hit by a rubber bullet, and 3 suffered from breathing difficulties due to tear gas inhalation. Two men were arrested, including one of the protest’s organisers, Ahed Khawaja.

Earlier in the day, some 50 Israeli jeeps invaded the village at approximately 09:30, imposing a curfew, forcibly closing down shops, and obliging residents to remain in their homes. When residents left their homes in defiance of the curfew, Israeli soldiers began firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Tear gas was also fired at the local school that lies in the centre of the village, and several children were injured as a result.

Local resident, Hindi Mesleh, said that he believed the curfew had been strategically timed to prevent widespread participation in the demonstration that had been planned for 11:30 that morning.

Abdel Taher Fror, Khalid Abdel Karim Fror, and one other man were arrested in their homes by undercover Israeli police in a Palestinian car posing as door-to-door melon sellers. They remain under detention.

On Tuesday, 27th May, approximately 500 residents from the village of Ni’lin and Al Midya in the Ramallah governorate, as well as international and Israeli activists, converged in Al Midya to protest against the construction of Israel’s illegal apartheid wall (also commonly referred to as the annexation wall), which will steal yet more of the villages’ lands and effectively turn their villages into a prison.

After the great success of stopping construction work the previous Friday, activists marched enthusiastically up the hill towards the bulldozers, which were surrounded by razor wire and two lines of Israeli soldiers. Once protesters were approximately 30 metres away, soldiers began firing rubber-coated steel bullets, and launched a barrage of tear gas, utilising a jeep-mounted tear gas launcher, capable of firing 30 canisters of tear gas at once. Demonstrators were quickly overwhelmed by the gas, some requiring hospitalisation. One journalist from Al Jazeera news, Jivara Bouderi, was carried out on a stretcher after asphyxiating due to tear gas inhalation. Approximately 30 activists were injured with rubber bullets and tear gas, five seriously. Mohammad Ayed Sarour is currently in hospital after being shot in the side of the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet, breaking the bones of his skull. Another man, Machmoud Marwan Hawaji was also hospitalised after being shot in the jaw with a rubber-coated steel bullet, while Galib Khalan Amira required hospitalisation as a result of a beating he received from Israeli soldiers. He is reported to have flesh wounds around his spine, but the full extent of his injuries remain unknown. Another journalist from Wattan TV was hospitalised after being shot in the leg at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet – illegal under Israeli law which stipulates that rubber bullets can only be used from a distance of at least 40 metres. In addition, one child was injured in the abdomen; and one international in the buttocks.

Ten activists were detained, with eight already released. Two remain in custody – including the owner of the land upon which the demonstration took place.

Despite the overwhelming and disproportionate response of the Israeli army to a non-violent demonstration, activists rallied and attempted many times to reach the bulldozers and prevent the further theft of land and geographic and economic isolation that the completed wall will bring.

Ni’lin and Al Midya are surrounded by the illegal Israeli settlements of Nili and Na’ale to the west; and Modi’in Illit, Hashmon’im, and Mattityahu to the south – meaning that by the time the apartheid wall is completed, villagers will be surrounded on three sides by the wall, leaving only the north open to them. Local activists explain, however, that part of Israel’s master plan for the area includes the construction of an apartheid (Israeli only) road from Nili to Tel Aviv, cutting Ni’lin in two with only a one-way tunnel planned to enable movement between the two parts of the village; effectively denying half of the residents access to the rest of their village and the services located there.

Approximately 140 families are losing their land with the construction of this part of the apartheid wall – one of the last portions of the wall to be constructed. The land that will be lost is some of the most fertile in the area – a common theme of the route of the wall and part of the reason it is commonly referred to as the annexation wall, because of the huge amounts of Palestinian land that it works to annex to Israel. Many of the families that will lose their land rely heavily on it, such as an elderly man who has just his 100 dounums (approximately 25 acres) to provide for his wife and two older, unmarried daughters.

Residents are determined, however, not to give up their land without a fight, and have vowed to continue their attempts to stop the wall with regular demonstrations, calling people from throughout the West Bank to join them in their struggle.