At Thursday night the first half dozen peep of the anarchists against the wall initiative and others of the coalition against the fence, arrived in Bil'in as a measure against the threat of the regional commander that "there will not be any more Friday demonstrations against the fence in Bil'in". The road blocks and intensive repression in the previous Friday endangered absence of Israelis - the only restrain of harsh suppression. Even today we heard many times army commanders warn their soldiers not to shoot as there are Israelis there. Friday started at 5:00 when lot of soldiers entered the village declaring curfew and a military zone Israelis must get out. Not long afterwards the came to the House where the International volunteers dwell and the Israelis use when staying at the village.
They refrained from entering the ISM house as the owner Abdallah of the village comity locked it and dared the state force to break entry - which could result in big scandal. Thus, they enter the neighbor house where half of the Israelis and Internationals stayed for the night as a measure against "night visit" and night arrests. They ordered them to get out of the village. As deceit, they say they agree and just needed 10 minutes to take their papers and things from the ISM apartment... So, the state force brought them to the house with the ISM apartment... and got huge disappointment when they refused to get out...
They threatened us that they will break in 10 minutes time if... and did it about 20 times. During these 3 hours or so, we did as we promised - if prevented from marching, we will do the demonstrations at our houses. We hanged from the roof big canvases with graphics and slogans and placard comrades prepared at night. With the whole pack of media anxious not to miss the scene of the promised breaking in and arrest of 20 activists, it was a real demonstration.
This continued till we got out of the house and the courtyard in an effort to unarrest a Palestinian involved with the struggle who was held near by.
This was an opportunity for the state force to jump on the six Israelis who stayed the night... and only one of us was unarested by the Palestinian comrades.
These 5 Israelis were the first to be arrested (together with three Internationals suspected as being Israelis. These five were also the first to be released (with bail and restriction from visiting Bil'in for two weeks) as they were taken in late morning to the Givat Zeev police station.
About 12:00, 200 Israelis From Israel three main regions - Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, who responded to the call for special efforts against the state harassment of Bil'in demonstrations, tried to enter the region, they found al roads blocked. Most of them, including oldies of 80+ were forced to go about two hours by foot through the hills surrounding Bil'in in order to arrive in the village center.
Around noon, a big group of activists forced their way into the mosque in spite of the physical objection of the soldiers - who saw it as part of the preparation to the Friday demonstration.
Till 14:00 the state forces already detained Abdallah - a member of the village fence comity, as revenge for refusing them the entry to his house the ISM apartment is in, and also additional 20 Israelis - these were people who arrived to Bil'in infiltrating around or through the road blocks.
Late morning, the village was flooded with tear gas from confrontations between the state force and the village youngsters who responded with stone throwing to the invading forces trying to enforce curfew and catching Israelis. Along the morning struggle the state forces injured seriously a Palestinian. They allowed a Palestinian comrade to take him to hospital in Ramalla, but when the driver returned to the village, on pretense of curfew they forced out of his car and smashed the car widows.
When the mass of Israelis arrived, the hunt after and arrests of incoming Israelis ended and they just forced us to stay near and within the mosque compound.
There people stayed doing the forbidden demonstration and from time to time giving some support to the village youngsters that continued to confront the forces till evening. At some stage of the long afternoon, the border police and the army left the center of the village, following the stone throwing youngsters along the road the usual demonstration was marching the previous Fridays.
It was about 16:30, and the Israelis who retreated tear gas flood to a near by courtyard held a meeting to decide what to do. Some were satisfied with the success of arriving to Bil'in in spite of curfew and the demo near the mosque. Some wanted to intervene in the struggle of the youngsters against the state force as photographers and observers to prevent murderous shooting by the soldiers. The majority decided to take advantage of the absence of state forces from the south part of the village and do the demonstration march to the route of the fence - hundreds of the state forces made the whole day efforts to prevent....
And surprise surprise, the first time for months of Friday demonstrations blocked on the way to the fence building route, about 100 of us - Israelis and Palestinians succeeded to arrive to the fence route with no one harassing us on the way. Just as we arrived there, the army commander of the region arrived with 10 soldiers in two cars... too small power to restrain us.
We marched for a while along the route accompanying for a while the two army cars, after they failed to arrest Mohammed of the village comity who was with us.
Then, we returned to the village center for another short confrontation with the state force who still could not subdue the stone throwers.
We learned there that about additional 10 were detained for a while during the afternoon but were not taken to the detention point.
At that late afternoon, the state force released a dozen or so of the detainees taking to the Givat Zeev police station Abdallah and half a dozen Israelis.
After processing them at the police station, the police decided to hold Abdallah and one Israeli for the night, and the other five were contemplating to stay with them in solidarity. At the end of the day, all the Israelis were released while Abdallah was taken to Ofer - the Israeli concentration camp for Palestinians.
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