The 20th anniversary to the fall of the Berlin Wall will be marked this Friday in mass demonstrations across the West Bank calling for an immediate dismantling of Israel’s wall and settlements
Exactly twenty years ago, On 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall came crumbling down in two days that inspired hope for a world in which walls could no longer keep people apart. Today, a wall twice as high and five times as long is being built by
Israel in the West Bank, in blunt contempt of international law, to separate Palestinians from their lands.
Despite the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion from 2004, which had pronounced Israel’s wall illegal, and called for its removal, no significant changes on the ground were made.
The demonstrators raised a model of the Wall at the Wall itself, which stated that, as the Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago, the Bil’in Wall must fall today.
The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has been declared an international day of action against Israel’s barrier. Today the protesters called for its removal, and attempt to implement the ICJ’s decision.
Several demonstrators suffered from tear gas inhalation from canisters thrown at them by the Israeli occupation soldiers in their attempt to suppress the weekly protest of Bil’in citizens and solidarity groups.
The demonstration was called by the Popular Committee Against the Wall and started directly after the Friday prayers. Bil’in citizens were joined by a group of international and Israeli peace activists and together they raised Palestinian flags and banners condemning the occupation, racist policy of building the Wall and settlements, land confiscation, road closures and detention and killing of innocent people.
The Brecht-Eislerchoir of Brussels Belgium sung several songs of solidarity and resistance to support the struggle in Bilin. The choir has presented in Belgium a choral piece ,The Shouting Fence, on the Palestinian situation with text by Mahmoud Darwich. After the concerts we wanted to see with our own eyes what the effects are in the daily life of Palestininans. Our attendance in the demonstration in Bilin strengthens our commitment to the Palestinian struggle for freedom In this way we try to raise awareness in Belgium about the occupation and the apartheid wall. In addition to that we have anther group from Ireland from IPSC .
Two days before, a large group of European diplomats made a visit to Bil’in, and went to the Wall to see how it has stolen the villagers land. They then held a meeting with the Popular Committee where they heard about the affects of the IOF’s night raids into the village. Diplomats visited from Romania, France, Slovenia, Sweden, UK, Portugal, Denmark, Netherlands, Malta, Austria, Finland, Czech Republic, Poland, EU, Ireland and Belgium.
The heavy rain which fell down in the West Bank didn’t prevent the protesters of Ni’lin village from protesting against the Apartheid Wall, the pray held in one of the mosques in the village, after that the demostration went through village streets inviting the people to participate and calling against the polices of the occupation government in taking lands and killing people all over Palestine.
The protesters managed to reach the concrete wall; they brought huge number of the car tires, it is important to mention that the demo started with the slogan of the “Black Wall” the name expressing the bad effect of the wall for the people who lost their lands in Ni’lin and in Palestine in general.
The Protesters burned the tires near the concrete wall, that affected the wall and protesters started seeing cracks and splits in the concrete, during that the occupation forces start shot a huge amount of tear gas at the protesters, some of the people had difficulty breathing, the Red Crescent volunteers helped the people and gave them the treatment.
Ibrahim Ameera the coordinator of Ni’lin village public committee said that, “the public struggle the only way for getting our freedom back, and Ni’lin village is one of these examples, and we will continue the struggle and finding innovative ways to make the wall fall down.”
The clashes started between the stones throwers and the soldiers who managed to shoot the tear gas to the people and to spray the waste water towards the protesters to prevent them from reaching the wall, the youth thrown a bottles with red colors to send a message to the occupation that this is the real color of your jeeps and forces.
Demonstrators set fire to tires near the Apartheid Wall
Protesters carry tires to the site of the illegal Wall
The concrete wall cracks under the heat of the fire
Israel began construction of the Wall on Ni’lin’s land in 2004, but stopped after an injunction order issued by the Israeli Supreme Court (ISC). Despite the previous order and a 2004 ruling from the International Court of Justice declaring the Wall illegal, construction of the Wall began again in May 2008. Following the return of Israeli bulldozers to their lands, residents of Ni’lin have launched a grassroots campaign to protest the massive land theft, including demonstrations and direct actions.
The original route of the Wall, which Israel began constructing in 2004, was ruled illegal by the ISC, as was a second, marginally less obtrusive proposed route. The most recent path, now completed, still cuts deep into Ni’lin’s land. The Wall has been built to include plans, not yet approved by the Army’s planning authority, for a cemetery and an industrial zone for the illegal settlement Modi’in Ilit.
Since the Wall was built to annex more land to the nearby settlements rather than in a militarily strategic manner, demonstrators have been able to repeatedly dismantle parts of the electronic fence and razor-wire surrounding it. Consequently, the army has erected a 15-25 feet tall concrete wall, in addition to the electronic fence. The section of the Wall in Ni’lin is the only part of the route where a concrete wall has been erected in response to civilian, unarmed protest.
As a result of the Wall construction, Ni’lin has lost 3,920 dunams, roughly 30% of its remaining lands. Originally, Ni’lin consisted of 15,898 dunams (3928 acres). Post 1948, Ni’lin was left with 14,794 dunams (3656 acres). After the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the illegal settlements and infrastructure of Modi’in Ilit, Mattityahu and Hashmonaim were built on village lands, and Ni’lin lost another 1,973 dunams. With the completion of the Wall, Ni’lin has a remaining 8911 dunams (2201 acres), 56% of it’s original size.
Ni’lin is effectively split into 2 parts (upper and lower) by Road 446, which was built directly through the village. According to the publicized plan of the Israeli government, a tunnel will be built under road 446 to connect the upper and lower parts of Ni’lin, allowing Israel to turn Road 446 into a segregated-setter only road. Subsequently, access for Palestinian vehicles to this road and to the main entrances of upper and lower Ni’lin will be closed. Additionally, since the tunnel will be the only entryway to Ni’lin, Israel will have control over the movement of Palestinian residents.
Israel commonly uses tear-gas projectiles, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition against demonstrators.
Since May, 2008, five of Ni’lin’s residents were killed and one American solidarity activist was critically injured from Israeli fire during grassroots demonstrations in Ni’lin.
5 June 2009: Yousef Akil Srour (36) was shot in the chest with 0.22 caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
13 March 2009: Tristan Anderson (37), an American citizen, was shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas projectile. He is currently at Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv with uncertain prospects for his recovery.
28 December 2008: Mohammed Khawaje (20) was shot in the head with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition. He died in a Ramallah hospital 3 days later on 31 December 2008.
28 December 2008: Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) was shot in the back with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
30 July 2008: Yousef Amira (17) was shot in the head with two rubber coated steel bullets. He died in a Ramallah hospital 5 days later on 4 August 2008.
29 July 2008: Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
Israeli armed forces have shot 40 demonstrators with live ammunition in Ni’lin. Of them, 11 were shot with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and 24 were shot with 0.22 caliber live ammunition.
Since May 2008, 87 arrests of Ni’lin residents have been made in relation to anti-Wall demonstrations in the village. The protesters seized by the army constitute around 7% of the village’s males aged between 12 and 55. The arrests are part of a broad Israeli intimidation campaign to suppress all demonstrations against the apartheid infrastructure in the West Bank.
Adeeb Abu Rahmah was arrested on 10 July this year, and is still held in custody for taking part in organizing the village’s demonstrations. Demonstrators wore masks of his face and called for his release.
Two protestors were injured today, while several suffered from tear gas inhalation during the weekly Friday demonstration in Bil’in.
The demonstration was called by the Popular Committee Against the Wall and began after the Friday prayers. Bil’in citizens were joined by a group of international and Israeli solidarity activists and together they raised Palestinian flags and banners condemning the occupation, racist policy of building the Wall and settlements, land confiscation, road closures and detention and killing of innocent people.
Adeeb Abu Rahmah, a leading activist and organizer from the West Bank village of Bil’in has been held in detention since his arrest during a demonstration on 10 July 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqaO8lFYuM0).
Bil’in’s weekly demonstration against the Wall and settlements was devoted to calling for the release of Abu Rahmah, as well as to protesting the ongoing attempts to eliminate the village’s resistance. Protesters marched on Friday wearing masks of Adeeb, declaring “We are all Adeeb Abu Rahmah”.
Abu Rahmah, who has been detained for over three months, is not suspected of committing any violence, but was indicted with a blanket charge of “incitement to violence”, which was very liberally interpreted in this case to include the organizing of grassroots demonstrations. A judge had initially ruled that Abu Rahmah is released with restrictive conditions, but an appeal filed by the military prosecution had the decision overturned, and he was remanded until the end of legal proceedings. Since the arrest, the defense has appealed this decision four times. Trials often last up to a year and Abu Rahmah is the sole provider for a family of eleven.
Abu Rahmah’s arrest came amidst an Israeli arrest and intimidation campaign that began concurrently with preliminary hearings in a Bil’in lawsuit against two Canadian companies responsible for the construction in the settlement of Modiin Illit. In almost five years of protest, 75 Bil’in residents were arrested in connection to demonstrations against the Wall. Of them, 27 have been arrested in the recent, ongoing arrest campaign. Israeli forces have been regularly invading homes and forcefully searching for demonstration participants, targeting the leaders of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, as well as teenage boys accused of stone throwing. Sixteen currently remain in detention, nine of which are minors.
On 23 June 2009, the Canadian court heard the preliminary arguments for a suit brought by Bil’in against two companies registered in Canada (Green Park International & Green Mount International). The village is seeking justice against the construction of settlements on its lands under the 2000 Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Statute, which incorporates international humanitarian law into Canadian federal law. Some of the people arrested in the latest wave of arrests have reported being questioned in regards to this suit during their interrogation.
Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.
These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.
In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.
Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.
While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.
In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.
Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.
In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.
Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.
In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.
Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point.
To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.
Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.
“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera.
Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.
It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.
Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water.
Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.
In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.
In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.
In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.
“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera.
“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”
The day the bulldozers came…
West Bank farmer Mahmoud al-‘Alam won’t forget the day Israeli army bulldozers cut off his water supply… and destroyed his livelihood.
The village of Beit Ula, where Mahmoud lives, is not connected to the Palestinian water network. Instead the community, located north-west of Hebron, relies on rainwater, which it collects and stores in pots dug in the ground, known as cisterns.
The nine new cisterns built in 2006 as part of a European Union-funded project to improve food security became the pride of the village. The cisterns were vital to the survival of the nine families that used them… until the bulldozers arrived.
“[The Israeli army] destroyed everything; they went up and down several times
with the bulldozer and uprooted everything,” recalls Mahmoud al-‘Alam.
In a few hours, years of hard work had been undone. The cisterns had been built with the help of two local nongovernmental organizations, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees and the Palestinian Hydrology Group.
The cisterns provided water for 3,200 newly planted trees including olive, almond, lemon and fig trees. The farmers had also contributed a significant portion of the overall cost of the project.
“We invested a lot of money and worked very hard,” said Mahmoud al-‘Alam. “This is good land and it was a very good project. We put a lot of thought into how to shape the terraces and build the cisterns in the best way, to make the best use of the land, and we planted trees which need little water… the saplings were growing well…”
The story of Beit Ula is one of many cases where Israeli forces have targeted Palestinian communities in the region.
On 4 June 2009, the Israeli army destroyed the homes and livestock pens of 18
Palestinian families in Ras al-Ahmar, a hamlet in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank.
More than 130 people were affected, many of them children. Crucially, the soldiers
confiscated the water tank, tractor and trailer used by the villagers to bring in water. They were left without shelter or a water supply at the hottest time of the year.
On 28 July 2007, Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint confiscated the tractor and water tanker of Ahmad Abdallah Bani Odeh, a villager from the hamlet of Humsa.
An Israeli army official told Amnesty International that the vital items were being confiscated in an attempt to force the villagers from the area, which the army had declared a “closed military area”.
In another village, a rainwater harvesting cistern belonging to Palestinian villagers was destroyed by the Israeli army under the pretext that it was built without a permit. Permits for water projects have to be obtained from the Israeli authorities but are rarely granted to Palestinians.
In recent years the homes of Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley have been repeatedly destroyed and their water tankers confiscated.
Each time, the homes – tents and simple shacks made of metal and plastic sheets – are rebuilt. Because of the villagers’ determination to remain on their land despite extremely harsh living conditions, the Israeli army has increasingly restricted their access to water as a way of forcing them to abandon the area.
In’am Bisharat, a mother of seven from the village of Hadidiya, told Amnesty International: “We live in the harshest conditions, without water, electricity or any services.
“The lack of water is the biggest problem. The men spend most of the day…[going] to get water and they can’t always bring it. But we have no choice. We need a little bit of water to survive and to keep the sheep alive. Without water there is no life.
“The [Israeli] army has cut us off from everywhere…We don’t choose to live like this; we would also like to have beautiful homes and gardens and farms, but these privileges are only for the Israeli settlers… we are not even allowed basic services.”
The lack of water has already forced many Palestinians to leave the Jordan Valley and the survival of the communities is increasingly threatened. In Beit Ula, Mahmoud al-‘Alam’s livelihood is similarly at risk.
“It is very painful for me every time to come here and see the destruction; everything we worked for is gone. Why would anyone want to do this? What good can come from [it]?” he asks.
On Monday 26 October 2009 at 4pm, a group of about 40 – 50 international and Israeli citizens, taking part in a tour organised by the Alternative Information Centre visited the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. They gathered outside of the house of the Gawi family which was recently forcefully evicted from their house, only for it to be taken over by settlers.
Israeli police units summoned by the settlers occupying the Gawi family house, arrived at the scene and responded to what they claimed was an illegal demonstration by clearly disproportionate violence. In an attempt to disperse the crowd, the police arrested four participants of the tour – an Israeli rabbi, Yehiel Grenimann from Rabbis for Human Rights, a Greek diplomat, Tina Strikou and two international activists.
At first, only one police unit arrived to the area and started pushing the crowd away from the Gawi family house, to the other side of the street where the family has been living since they were forcefully evicted on 2 August 2009. Those who refused to move or moved slowly were violently pushed by the police. Two more police units arrived later and, using a loud-speaker, made an announcement in Hebrew, apparently an order to leave the area or to move to the sidewalk opposite to the Gawi family house within 5 minutes.
The police then started to collect passport information from the remaining visitors. When Tina Strikou, a Greek diplomat, protested that the police didn’t have the right to do this and demanded they return her passport, she was forcefully taken into custody.
A couple of minutes later, an Israeli rabbi Yehiel Grenimann from Rabbits for Human Rights, who was standing in the middle of the street was pushed back towards the sidewalk by a police officer. When he gently resisted, the police forcefully arrested him. He lost his glasses and a shoe while the police dragged him into their car. An international activist who was filming the arrest of the rabbi from close range became the third person to be arrested and taken away from the scene.
In the last couple of days, residents of Sheikh Jarrah have seen a rise in harassment form the police and Israeli authorities, as well as violence and provocative actions from the side of the settlers occupying houses which belong to the Gawi and Hannoun family. Last Tuesday 20 October, a group of settlers attacked several members of the Gawi family, mainly women and children. The attack resulted in seven Palestinians injured and six detained. On Sunday 18 October 2009, the police and municipality workers came to the tent where the Gawi family lives and verbally ordered them to remove the tent before Sunday 25 October 2009.
Furthermore, on Tuesday, 27 October, the second hearing of the Sabagh family from Sheikh Jarrah will take place. Similar to the families Al-Kurd, Gawi, and Hannoun, the Sabagh family is also under the threat of eviction.
Background
The Gawi and Hannoun families, consisting of 53 members including 20 children, have been left homeless after they were forcibly evicted from their houses on 2 August 2009. The Israeli forces surrounded the homes of the two families at 5.30am and, breaking in through the windows, forcefully dragged all residents into the street. The police also demolished the neighbourhood’s protest tent, set up by Um Kamel, following the forced eviction of her family in November 2008.
At present, all three houses are occupied by settlers and the whole area is patrolled by armed private settler security 24 hours a day. Both Hannoun and Gawi families, who have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.
The Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah is home to 28 Palestinian families, all refugees from 1948, who received their houses from the UNRWA and Jordanian government in 1956. All face losing their homes in the manner of the Hannoun, Gawi and al-Kurd families.
The aim of the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
