Dozens injured after inhaling tear gas, five injured by Israeli occupation forces bullets in Ni'lin protest

Bil'in: dozens injured after inhaling tear gas, town waits for court verdict

Date: 01 / 08 / 2008 Time: 17:56
Ramallah – Ma'an –

Dozens of residents and a Palestinian journalist suffered breathing problems after inhaling tear gas fired on them by the Israeli occupation soldiers. The injured were engaged in a peaceful protest in the town of Bil'in.

The protest is a weekly event in demonstration against the construction of the separation wall which will cut the village off from its ancestral land.

The residents of the village took to the streets after the Friday prayer alongside international and Israeli peace activists carrying Palestinian flags and banners that denounced Israeli policies including the construction of the Wall, land confiscation, settlement building, road closures, the siege of Palestinian cities, the killing civilians especially children in addition to other slogans denouncing the shooting of detainees while they are hand cuffed and blind folded.

Demonstrators chanted slogans calling for national unity as they made their way to the wall in an attempt to cross into the village lands. The group carried with them a picture of Ahmad Husam Musa, a boy who was killed by the Israeli army in the village of Ni'lin Tuesday while participating in a demonstration.

Israeli soldiers attacked the demonstration, firing tear gas bombs and rubber coated metal bullets on the crowd. Dozens were treated for tear gas inhalation, including Imad Burnat a Palestinian journalist.

On Wednesday a group of Italians visited the Wall in the village and listened to a detailed presentation on the wall and its deleterious affects on the village by the Popular Committee Against the Wall. The Italian group tried to pass through to the lands behind the wall but Israeli soldiers prevented them from doing so. The delegation headed to Ni'lin, a village north east of Bil'in where they hoped to extend condolences to the family of the child killed Tuesday. Israeli soldiers, however, prevented them from entering the village.

The popular committee against the Wall in Bil'in denounced Israeli violent attacks on the demonstrators.

On September 4, 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the Israeli authorities to redraw the path of the wall because the current route was deemed "highly prejudicial" to the villagers of Bil'in. In July a new route for the wall was submitted to Israeli authorities. The new plan will return some of the agricultural area that has been destroyed by the construction process, but the new route will cut into a second agricultural sector. According to the group's lawyer, the new route will actually take more land away from the town than the original.

The town has objected to the plan and is awaiting a court hearing scheduled for 4 August.

Five injured in Ni'lin protest

Date: 01 / 08 / 2008 Time: 17:28
Ramallah – Ma'an –

Five Palestinians were injured after being hit by Israeli occupation forces rubber coated metal bullets at a protest in the West Bank village of Ni'lin on Friday.

The demonstration was held to protest the construction of the separation wall that will see large tracts of the village's land confiscated. It began with a peaceful march to the construction site where demonstrators began to carry out their Friday prayers. The crowd was attacked by Israeli occupation forces, who fired barrages of rubber bullets and tear gas, injuring five.

Local sources say that the soldiers pursued the locals to the entrance of the village where they fired teargas into some houses causing breathing problems amongst residents, including women and children.

Ayman Nafi, head of Ni'lin municipality said that a number of gas canisters were fired at the health clinic and started a fire in the surrounding area which was extinguished by fire fighting vehicles that rushed to the scene.

There have been regular demonstrations in recent weeks in Ni'lin to protest the confiscation of land belonging to the village's residents. There have been dozens injured and this week two locals were killed after being shot by Israeli forces.

A number of children were injured during a nonviolent protest in Bethlehem

Friday August 01, 2008 15:42 by Rula Shahwan - IMEMC News

Local sources reported that a number of Palestinian children were injured during a non violent protest against the illegal wall in Al-Ma'sara village near by the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Friday midday.

A number of internationals, Israeli peace activists and Palestinian villagers marched in a nonviolent protest against the annexation wall being built on the village lands and in solidarity with the people of Nil'in village south of the West Bank city of Ramallah. Local sources reported that the Israeli army stopped the protest by violently attacking the protesters.

Among them were children who were injured by the Israeli troops. On July 9th 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague declared that the construction of an Israeli wall in the West Bank was illegal, yet construction of the wall continues to this day.

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