Palestine-Israel, Bil'in, Another quite Friday demonstration against the separation fence and occupation 15 Dec 2006

It is probably the ninety ninth (99) Friday demonstration in a row (since February 2005) of the joint struggle of the Bil'in people and the Israeli anarchists against the wall initiative. Though the separation fence had already been built in the region, and in spite of the Israeli supreme court of "justice" approval of the robbery of most of the village lands on the west side of the separation fence, and even when lot of the village people do not support the Friday demonstrations any more - the struggle continue. There are still enough people of the village, of the Israelis anarchists against the wall, international activists, and Palestinians out of the village who persist. This Friday about 80 of us marched at noon from the village center on the road towards the route of the separation fence. Holding some flags and placards, and chanting all the way we arrived at the blocked gate to the other side of the fence. (When we exited the built area of the village we have seen on the two sides of it the Israeli state force waiting for the stone throwing youngsters who engage them with the stones against shock and tear gas grenades and rubber coated bullets each Friday - after the nonviolent demonstration is already out of the village.)

When we arrived at the blocked gate, we found that like the previous Friday, the spools of barbed wire were not "protecting" the gate and the "ritual" of pulling it with response of shock grenades - that characterized previous demonstrations, was not carried out. Thus after some verbal confrontation with the soldiers protecting the closed gate we started to march along the separation fence. As usual, Few officers and a platoon of soldiers accompanied us to prevent "assault" on the spool of the barbed wire that protect the fence that protect the route the electronic fence pass in its middle.

As in the previous demonstration some of us pooled a bit, but stopped when the soldiers insist... some of us succeeded to pass the barbed wire and stand along the fence bordering the route, before the soldiers blocked the points the passing was possible at.

And as usual, there was there the verbal confrontation with the state force personal - mostly privates serving the mandatory 3 year service of high school graduates and their officers.

After a while, we started to return to the village. However, it was not so simple, as the area around the entrance of the road to the village was the war zone the confrontation between the village youngsters and the state force was continuing. So we made a long detour around them and arrived back to the center of the village without casualties.