Friday, December 30, 2005

Palestine-Israel, The joint struggle in Abud and Bil'in is intensified - 30-12-05

In the last Friday too the activists of the Anarchists Against The Wall initiative and the people who join us split forces. The main locations were as usual the last Fridays, Abud (near the village Rantis) and Bil'in (near Modi'in Elit settlers town. The activity in Bil'in was centered - like the last 10 days, around the new structure of the Bil'in center for joint struggle for peace, located few hundreds meter on the west side of the fence which separate the Bil'in village (on the East side of the fence from most of its olive orchards - gradually uprooted to make place for the Israeli orthodox settlement town. The struggle took a strange and unexpected turn when at Sunday night of the second coming of the center, while it was raining and the Israeli state forces were not wise to it, the activists there built a 3X5 meter structure.

Because Bil'in is in the center of attention of the Israeli media and present in the international media too, and its case is supposed to come before the highest Israel court of "justice" for verdict - the state forces hesitate a lot. They confiscated the second container on Monday, but refrained from eviction and destruction of the structure. They even refrained from harassing people and preventing movement to the center both from Bil'in on the other side of the route of the fence or from the Israeli side.

Since the army decree for stopping the enlargement of the building and dating a hearing on 5.1.06 activists and guests congregate in the center and in its "court yard". Few Israelis and Palestinians stayed there at nights to be on the safe side and for strengthening the point.

Friday morning, we got out of the sleeping bags for another day of activity in the center to the blessing of "Sabakh El Heir" (good morning) from the comrades who stayed all the night around the small fire adjacent to the structure - after the guests and other activists present during the day returned to Bil'in or their homes. The blessing was accompanied with a morning coffee and tea to smooth the beginning of a new day.

Not much later, people from Bil'in, from Israel, and from further away started to congregate.

First came a group of Bil'in women of the activists families with children and materials for the promised meal. Very soon, the smell of the baking in the portable taboon were all around mixed with the sounds of joy of the young children playing around. Then, the bigger crowd start to arrive - both people from Bil'in and Israel, and few special guests - including Cindy and Craig Corry, parents of the late American peace activist murdered by Israeli state forces at the Gaza strip. Present as well were also Palestinian political figures Kaddoura Fares, Mustafa Barghouti, and Kais Abu Leila.

All these hours, the Israeli occupation forces who increased their numbers in the vicinity kept a clear distance, but refrained - like the other days of the week from harassing the people or blocking the free movement to the center and from it - both for the people of Bil'in (who cross the route of the separation fence days and nights), and for the Israelis who come through the settlement town. They even kept bigger distance than the armored car who spies on the center days and nights to see it will not be enlarged.

Towards noon, after a lot of nonformal contacts, small meeting circles and explanation to both media, guests from abroad, and Israeli first comers, and after the food distribution there was a general meeting of about two hundreds people, which was followed by a Friday noon prier of most of the Bil'inians.

After the prier, people continue with small circles get together while most of the people of Bil'in started to return to the village.

Even in this activity a score of youngsters were reluctant to miss the weekly confrontation of stone throwing with the soldiers tear gas grenades... They climbed on a high pile of construction gravel facing the further away state forces and starting to through towards the soldiers... Though the state forces were too far away, to be on the safe side, the activists of the Bil'in village popular comity "herded" the youngsters away and made them return to the village.

At the afternoon, most of the people left the location leaving some activists to "hold the post".

No comments: