Ma'asara
Some 60 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.
Some 20 Israelis and a somewhat larger number of internationals joined the weekly Palestinian 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 local youth, who had enough of the gas, expressed their discontent 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 village youth. 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.
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.
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 Sundance 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 the house, holding a rally there. After this success, the demonstration ended peacefully.
Friday Demonstrations also took place in Wallaje, Wad Rachal and An Nabi Saleh. In the lattter, a local Palestinian activist was arrested in his home, and the village women who tried de-arresting him were attacked:
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 Saturday. After much chanting and singing the protesters attempted to march through the old city narrow roads 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 with a hose, to the sight of the soldiers which were tailing the march and did nothing in response.
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.
