Soldiers uprooting trees and invading the village, Ni'ilin. Video by ISM

Early Monday morning, Israeli troops descended on a piece of land behind the eastern houses of Ni’ilin, and proceeded to saw off the branches of several trees (part of the procedure for uprooting olive trees), and then uproot them. The Palestinian owners of the land were neither notified nor handed any warrants allowing for the destruction of these trees, and thus were denied their right to appeal such warrants, if any even exist.

Olive trees destroyed and uprooted by the army, Ni'ilin

Although there is no official confirmation, it appears the army is uprooting trees in preparation for the construction of a new road from the village to a future terminal that will, once the wall is completed, replace the existing checkpoint. This new road will form part of the infrastructure of separation: a tunnel will link the upper and lower parts of Ni’ilin, and thus Palestinians will be barred from using the current road (446) to the nearby Nili settlement, which will become an Israeli-only corridor. In military terminology these Israeli-only roads are often referred to as "sterile".

Police jeep hit by molotov cocktail during incursion into the village, Ni'ilin

Residents who came out to protest the destruction of trees - joined by Israeli and international activists - were met with teargas and rubber-coated steel bullets, as well as a few shots of live ammunition, resulting in hours of clashes between troops and locals, who fought back with stones. Soldiers fired on Ni’ilin’s youth from the fields right outside the village as well as from within the main road of the village itself. Residents erected barricades to prevent military jeeps from driving across the village, and even managed to hit two army jeeps with Molotov cocktails thrown from rooftops. Clashes ended at sundown after Israeli troops retreated to the edge of the village. At the end of the day, seven people were injured – including two youngsters with broken arms and one whose jaw was broken when a teargas projectile hit him directly in the face.