Palestine-Israel, 100th weekly Friday joint demonstration in Bil'in against the separation fence and occupation 22 Dec 2006

The Israeli state still do not like the joint Friday demonstrations against the separation fence and occupation, (as was expressed by the patrolling armored car who found us waiting to the car to Bil'in and declared the area as closed military zone and ordered us to return to the Israeli territory.. which we ignored). However they adopted a less belligerent pattern. As usual there were Palestinians from the village, from neighboring villages, and from Ramallah, and as usual ISM international (including this day a two dozen strong delegation from Spain), and of course the Israeli activists of the anarchists against the wall that never missed any of the demos in Bil'in.
As usual we started at noon the march from center of village to the route of the separation fence. As usual we carried a banner and placards, chanting all the way. As usual we seen the border police gendarmes on the roof of the last house and around it as provocation inviting the youngsters of the village to start the usual battle of stones against shock and tear gas grenades and rubber coated bullets. As usual we marched the one kilometer road through the olive grooves. As usual we found the gate to the route of the separation route blocked, with few soldiers in front of it.

As usual, there was the verbal confrontation and and low intensity physical pushing to - mainly from the soldiers side. As usual (but not the previous Friday), there was also the "hero" youngster who throe few stones behind our backs and quickly run away... but not as usual, the soldiers did not respond with the usual barge of shock grenades... and the nonviolent demo continued without the expected disruption

after a while we started to walk along the rote of the fence and in many points comrades pulled the barbed wire spools protecting the fence of the rote the electronic one is in its middle. The less belligerent mode of the soldiers was expressed by their refraining from throwing on us shock or tear gas grenades or arresting the most daring - they just approached the ones who pulled the barbed wire and pushed them away....

As usual, we heard all along the grenades and the shooting from the fringe of the village - though it seemed to be in lower intensity than usual. We were able to pass the "war zone" and return to the village without the need for a long detour with only the remnants of tear gas bothering us.