Some 10 Israelis and a handful of internationals joined this Ramadan'slastFriday demo against the wall and the occupation in Bil'in. With theheat andfasting taking their toll, and the international delegationsseason over, thedemo was smaller than usual. The army set a barbed wirebarrier on the way tothe wall, and deployed a few dozen meters behindit, between the wall and thebarrier. The demonstrators gathered behindthe barbed wire, and after a fewminutes removed it to march forward) next week, will they set a new barrierto protect the barrier that issupposed to keep demonstrators away from thewall?). At that point thearmy started shooting gas, and the demonstratorshad to retreat and declared the demo over. While even some of the feistiershabab couldn'tbe bothered to throw stones, the army kept on shooting gasuntil alldemonstrators were far up the hill leading to the village, occasionallygetting some gas "blow back" due to the shifting winds.
Ni'lin
The weekly protest in Ni'lin was very short. A group of around thirty protesters reached the wall route after a short march through the village's lands. One of the protesters called on the soldiers to stop defending the theft of Ni'lin lands. One or two protesters threw some stones over the wall, and some tires were set fire to. Within a minute of this, soldiers fired a volley of tear gas canisters, and shortly after, crossed the barrier in pursuit of the demonstrators, who retreated back into the village. Two international protesters were grabbed by soldiers and held for around half an hour, but they were then released and returned to the village.
Al Maasra
Some thirty Palestinians, Israelis and internationals participated in Friday's demonstration in the village of Al Maasra. Upon arrival at the main road, protesters were blocked by two army vehicles. Additional army vehicles came from the other direction.
Soldiers, who jumped off the vehicles as they wave their guns, declared the area a closed military zone and began pushing the protesters away while throwing stun grenades. One grenade was thrown directly at one of the demonstrators, hitting his body before falling and exploding on ground.
After pushing demonstrators to the junction outside the closed military zone, the soldiers began to back off. Demonstrators decided to move forward again. After a short distance, the soldiers pushed back the demonstrators to junction, using tear gas and stun grenades. At This point, occupation forces left the area and demonstrators declared victory. before the end of the demonstration was announced, Arabic and English speeches were made, denouncing the occupation, and calling for freedom, justice and implementation of international law.
Listen
Read phonetically
Search
In the past two years, Anarchists Against the Wall has been subject to a growing wave of assaults on anti-occupation activists in Israel and the West Bank.
In order to sustain our work and provide legal representation to arrested activists, we have issued an urgent appeal for regular supporters to help us raise $1500 by the end of each month.
