Monday, June 21, 2010

Palestine-Israel, The joint straggle persist in the "Tsumud" mood of "we will never let go"

The "Tsumud" (persistence) is the long continuance non violence stubbornness of refusal to yield to the Zionist settler colonialist efforts to transfer the Palestinians - intensified after 1948 establishment of Israel. It was the mode of the Palestinians Israel failed to transfer out in 1947/8 atrocities who become Israeli citizens in 1948. It is the mode adopted by the Palestinians in the 1967 conquered west bank and Gaza. The joint struggle of the villagers and their popular committees against the separation fence with the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, expand to other aspects of this struggle. Struggles against road blocks and gradual grabbing of lands by settlers focused now on at the struggle at Nabi Salah are on going for years in the Hebron region.

BEIT JALLA BEIT OMMAR BIL'IN DAHMASH HEBRON MA'ASARA NABI-SALAH NI'ILIN SHEIKH-JARRAH WALAJE

BEIT JALLA

"Media: Israeli forces injured eight people on Sunday while breaking up a peaceful demonstration against Israel's separation wall in the West Bank village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, according to local news reports.

Three journalists were reportedly among the injured. Palestinian academic and activist Mazin Qumsiyeh said in an email that two teenagers, Mohammed Masalma and Thaer Mahmoud, were beaten by Israeli soldiers using clubs.

Qumsiyeh also released a video showing soldiers roughly treating demonstrators, and also detonating stun grenades and tear gas. Tear gas canisters also set fire to a nearby hillside. http://www.youtube.com/v/ktDUzjnxapY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzxUGMn0eDQ
Palestinians in Beit Jala, like several other villages, hold regular demonstrations against the construction of Israel's wall, which snakes through the interior of the West Bank."

BEIT OMMAR

We need people to come to Beit Ommar this Saturday at 1:00 for the action. The destination will be determined (between Karmei Tsur and the entrance of the village, NOT blocking the street). The last two weeks an international has been arrested, both while the military was trying to arrest a Palestinian (the second time they succeeded). Those two internationals were then banned from the entire West Bank for the remainder of their visas. Because of the harsh restrictions on internationals being arrested, we are in special need of a few Israeli activists to come. It is possible to attend the Hebron demonstration afterward, they do not conflict and are close to each other.

Saturday - The weekly demonstration in Beit Ommar took place on Saturday within the agricultural lands adjacent to Karmey Tsur settlement, in itself built on the village's lands. As protesters soon found out, army soldiers prevented them from entering a cultivated land of Beit Ommar, declaring it a closed military zone. 2 Israeli protesters were arrested and taken to a police station. Unlike internationals on previous demos, they were released with a 14 day restriction from the Hebron area. Beit Ommar National Committee invites Israeli and international solidarity activists to its actions and demonstrations against the Israeli occupation, settlements, apartheid wall and the economic strangulation of the Palestinian people.

BIL'IN

About 50 Palestinians, some 20 Israelis and a somewhat larger number of internationals participated in the weekly demonstration in Bilin against the wall and occupation. Some Israeli activists were stopped at checkpoints on their way and threatened by the army, but were eventually allowed to continue. In Bil'in, the demonstrators marched chanting and singing merry folk songs. They reached the wall, and demonstrated peacefully for a few minutes, occasionally harassed by some tear gas, but not enough to scare them away. Eventually, the shabab, who had enough of the gas, expressed their dismay in the form of stones. The trigger happy soldiers then flooded the area with tear gas, forced in, and started chasing demonstrators. One British demonstrator with a bad knee who breathed in lots of gas couldn't keep up, so she was arrested along with two Israelis who came to help her. The soldiers continued chasing demonstrators all the way to the first homes of the village, but despite their tactic of trying to block the demonstrators' retreat with tear gas, were outrun by demonstrators under the cover of the gas canisters thrown back at them by the shabab. On their way back, one group of Israeli demonstrators was held at a checkpoint for two hours by soldiers who lied to them saying that they called the police to arrest them. The three arrested activists were released on the same day, after meeting with the Palestinian medics arrested in Ni'lin at the police station. Their release conditions will be set in court on Sunday.

Israel Puterman video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZQQ8DMX6XU

DAHMASH

Nissim Mossek video 13th Jun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNKCdpfRCak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43zZtPv3pVU&feature=player_embedded

Following the solidarity demonstration in Dahmash by the Sheikh Jarrah initiative, dozens of the Dahamsh people came to this Friday demo in Sheikh Jarrah.

HEBRON - South

Nissim Mossek video 12th Jun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogjwryVfw5M

Hebron Saturday

About 100 Palestinians and their international and Israeli supporters gathered next to the closed gates of the Israeli army blockade on Shuhada street in the weekly demonstration in Hebron. After much chanting and singing the protesters attempted to march through the old city allies but were soon blocked by the Israeli soldiers in a move that shows their clear siding with the settlers. The march then went through another way and at a certain point settlers squirted water on the march by a hose, to the sight of the soldiers which were tailing the march and remained still in response.

MA'ASARA

Some 20 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals marched together in the weekly demonstration against the Wall in Ma'asara. Following a long march in the summer heat through the village streets, demonstrators were surprised NOT to find any soldiers blocking the main road. Proceeding happily towards the village's agricultural lands, demonstrators were suddenly attacked by two soldiers in two army jeeps which came out of nowhere. Soldiers yelled that the area is declared a closed military zone, and started shoving people back.

Only a higher ranking officer who came after a couple of minutes was willing to listen to the demonstrators' demands. Much to their surprise, the officer decided to allow the demonstrators to march on. It's been two and a half years that the army has been stopping the marches in Ma'asara from reaching the route of the Wall, following a year during which all demonstrations took place there.

And so the march went on, walking by the main road, crossing the route of the planned barrier, and holding a small spontaneous rally with speeches on the Palestinian agricultural lands by the illegal settlement of Efrat. Speakers mentioned the uniqueness of the event, and mentioned Hassan Bargia, one of the prominent activists in the village who was arrested in last week's demonstration, and is still held by the army. Following this, demonstrators returned to the village peacefully.
http://awalls.org/files/images/IMG_4229.preview.JPG

The Israeli AAtW activists continued to the Sheikh Jarrah demonstration.

NABI SALAH

http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=288&Itemid=1

At today's protest, there was fiery resistance from the village women when Israeli Occupation Forces arrested a young man on the Orwellian accusation that he didn't prevent the shabab from throwing stones at them from his property, the arrest was fiercely resisted with palpable anger and outrage and even when the soldiers had him cocooned in a jeep prior to being carted off to detention and worse, the vehicle was physically prevented from leaving until brutality, percussion grenades and tear gas forced a way. However, there is a happy outcome to this story as the IOF released him shortly afterward to the arms of his joyous wife and villagers. Through out the West Bank and further afield, this tiny village of some 540 souls is now a symbol of awe and respect as it spearheads the nonviolent resistance to the Occupation and continuous theft of lands. Incredibly, all brutal attempts to break this butterfly of courage, this Palestinian Stalingrad on the wheel have been in vain. The latest threat to the village is the recent serving of demolition orders on ten houses adjacent to the illegal "settler" colony of Halamish by the Occupation regime so as to facilitate its cancerous, amoebic spread and eventually do what savage repression can't; break the resistance through ethnic cleansing.

NI'ILIN

Ni'lin's weekly protest included around 100 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals. Protesters expressed their anger at the theft of their land, some by chanting anti-occupation slogans, and others by throwing stones over the concrete wall. Soldiers fired tear gas canisters at the protesters. Following around two hours of this protest, soldiers crossed the wall and proceeded to arrest five medics belonging to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, and a Palestinian video cameraman. One of the soldiers punched the cameraman and a medic, and another threw a large rock at a radio receiver belonging to the medics. The arrestees were taken to the Shaar Binyamin police station. Two of them were accused of assaulting the police, and four were released. There are several videos of the incident proving that the soldiers were the only violent part of this incident, and these were used when the arrestees were brought to court Sunday, which led to their release.

"It always strikes me how well Israeli activists drive. Of course, there is good reason to be afraid that every minor traffic violation could result in arrest because of political activities. Despite that the car travel to the villages in the West Bank, where the Israeli armed forces routinely fire tear gas and rubber bullets at us, is always the safest part of the journey.

http://josephdana.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Nilin-Nabi-Salih-18-6-2010-76-of-829-300x200.jpg

The protests in Nil’in are getting smaller. Five people have died, countless injured, the village is routinely raided by Israeli armed forces looking for children that throw stones and there have been hundreds of arrests. On top of all this, the village has a concrete wall in the middle of their olive and farm grove. While the protest is losing numbers it does continue. On this past Friday, the normal procession of prayers and chants lead to the wall. The first hour was routine with lots of tear gas and some stone throwing. The protest moved along the route of the wall to the edge of a wadi where the wall goes from concrete to barbed wire fence. Groups of Palestinians run after tear gas canisters and try to stop them from discharging. The reusable tear gas canisters are collected and ultimately thrown back over the wall to the great excitement of the Shabab (Arabic for the Palestinian youth stone throwers).

On this day, one of the tear gas canisters thrown back across the wall started a large brush fire. After the fire, the soldiers entered the village with guns draw under the cover tear gas. The protesters had already retreated from the area of the wall leaving only the Red Crescent medical team and one photojournalist slowly making their way back to the village. The soldiers quickly surrounded the medical team with guns pointed at their heads. One soldier took an orange medical stretcher from the hands of a medic, hit him with it and slammed it to the ground destroying it. The camera of a Palestinian photojournalist was destroyed and everyone was handcuffed and lead to the Israeli side of the wall. We learned later that the army is charging the medical staff with assault and as of this writing they are still in an Israeli jail. The IDF has also argued that the medical staff was not clearly marked from the protesters. Yet another surreal observation by the army as the medical were dressed in a full white Red Crescent uniforms and carrying a stretcher which the soldiers used to beat them.

After reviewing the footage from Nil’in in the village we made our way to Nabi Salih to join the weekly protest that has been taking place for the past six months."

David Reeb video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijgrudXagEY


SHEIKH JARRAH

In Sheikh Jarrah some 350 demonstrators gathered for a festive demonstration against the ongoing home evictions in the neighborhood. The Irish singer Tommy Sun-dance sang his folk songs, local drummers chanted slogans to the Samba beat, and several die-hard football fans sounded the annoying South-African plastic trumpets. Meanwhile, an Italian photographer took portrait pictures of demonstrators, and the a group of residents from Dahamash, a village near Ramle in threat of demolition, came to show their support in the struggle, after Sheikh Jarrah people came to their demonstration in the beginning of the week.

After an hour of fun, the demonstration took a serious turn. The masses started marching towards a new house whose residents received an eviction notice. As the house is in the opposite direction from the ones the police is safeguarding, the march went on peacefully, until police realized what was going on and sent the riot unit to stop the march. After a tense stand off, demonstrators found a way around the police blockade through the narrow paths, and made it to the house, holding a rally there. After this success, the demonstration ended peacefully.

Israel Puterman video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM5Oan48o9I

WALAJE

Meeting today al-walaje
There will be a meeting today (Monday 14-6-10) at 20:00 in the village council of all those who want to take part in organizing demos direct action etc. if you're interested text me

Friday Demonstrations also took place in Wallaje, and Wad Rachal
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See Previous reports at: http://ilanisagainstwalls.blogspot.com

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