Ma'asara
This Friday, dozens of Ma'sara residents, joined by international and Israeli activists, marched towards the route of the separation wall. When the demonstrators reached the entrance of neighbouring village Um Salmona, they turned to the main road, hoping to reach their agricultural land. Numerous military jeeps promptly arrived at the scene and the soldiers advanced towards the demonstrators and blocked their way. As the demonstrators began giving speeches, the soldiers attacked them with shock grenades. An American demonstrator was hit directly in his hand from the grenade and sustained burns.
The demonstrators did not cave in to the military violence and remained in their place. Consequently, an Israeli demonstrator was arrested. The soldiers continued to attack the demonstrators with shock and tear gas grandees. Whilst a group of demonstrators attempted to negotiate the terms of the arrestee's release with the soldiers, another Israeli demonstrator was arrested. The soldiers left with the arrestees who were released after a few hours.
Bil'in
Some 25 Israelis and a similar number of internationals joined the weekly Palestinian demonstration against the wall and the occupation in Bil'in. The demonstration was joined by a large delegation from the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which commemorated nine years to the assassination of their former leader, Mustafa Abu Ali, by a missile shot into his home. The theme of the demonstration was Abdullah Abu Rahme's conviction of "incitement" and "organizing illegal demonstrations", and so protesters wore Abdullah masks, sending the messages "We are all Abdullah" and "Free Abdullah".
Unlike the last few weeks, the soldiers waited on the Western side of the fence, but demonstrators got only a few seconds to demonstrate before the unprovoked gas shooting began. Repeated gas shots forced most of the demonstrators to retreat, leaving in the front some shabab, photographers, and a few protesters who'd rather get arrested than run into the gas. When the soldiers saw that these last few demonstrators couldn't be scared away, they invaded the village. The demonstrators were pushed further back by the gas, way beyond the closed military zone line, and the shabab moved forward to stop the invasion with stones. Just before they retreated, the soldiers managed to lodge a rubber bullet inside a Palestinian protester's knee.
An Nabi Salih
Around 60 Nabi Salih residents, other Palestinians and Israeli and international supporters participated in the weekly demonstration against the crippling occupation - and more specifically - the Halamish settlement's annexation and destruction of a growing amount of land and resources from the village. The march from the village went in a different direction, but was soon blocked by Israeli army soldiers, threatening to make arrests.
After a while the march went back to the village center followed by the Israeli army's soldiers. This deepening incursion into the village was met with resistance by stone throwing. The army arrested one Israeli protester, claiming she has interfered it "in a way that endangered the soldiers' lives". The protester was released later on with restraining conditions.
This week's demonstration, which starts around 13:00 every Friday, kept on going till the evening (about 18:00), facing continued army incursions, and included also young women and some children from the village. During these repeated incursions the army used rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas and stun grenades against the protesters and inside the village's populated are
Ni'ilin
A group of around seventy protesters braved the heat and marched in the weekly protest against the wall built on the village's land. Protesters chanted slogans against the occupation and land theft, set fire to some tires and called on the soldiers guarding the wall to leave their posts and return home to their families. a handful of the youth threw stones at the soldiers, who fired a number of tear gas canisters.
Around an hour into the demonstration, a group of soldiers crossed the wall and arrested five Palestinian Red Crescent medics and a Palestinian and Israeli videographers. They were led by soldiers over the wall, and presented with a new closed military zone order, effective Friday, Aug 27th, from 10am to 10pm. The aerial photograph attached to the order encompassed a section of Ni'lin's agricultural land adjacent to the wall, not as extensive as the area designated "closed military zone" in the six month military order that was imposed on Ni'lin and Bilin (and has since expired). The medics and camera people were in fact detained outside of the designated area. The arrestees were then released.
This is the second time in two months that Israeli soldiers have detained PCRC medics in Ni'lin.
