Following two weeks of almost daily, very successful demonstrations in Ni'ilin, where demonstrators were able to disrupt construction numerous times and even to significantly damage machinery, the army had decided to resort to illegal collective punishment in its attempts to strangle the outburst of popular rage in the village.

In the divide between Thursday the 3rd and Friday the 4th, around 4AM, massive army forces gathered at the three entrances to the village and brought life in the village to a halt - no one allowed in or out.

A burning barricade, Friday the 4th

The village's popular committee initially assumed the siege is only a measurement taken by the army to try and block the Israeli and international supporters from entering the village. Walking through the groves, the majority of supporters managed to eventually get in, but the media was stopped.

Friday the 4th

To try and avoid trouble, a protest prayer planed to have taken place by the checkpoint, was moved to the center of the village. Still, this did not discourage the army from further attempts to provoke and employ violence, and as soon as the prayer ended, a group of armored jeeps invaded the village's main street. Enraged by the siege and following invasion, about a thousand villagers, accompanied by a handful of Israelis and internationals who managed to make their way in through the siege, set out to the street to resist the army. Burning barricades were rose and volleys of stones were pelted at the jeeps, eventually shattering the bulletproof windshields of two of them. An armored bulldozer that was sent to clear the barricades was also eventually held off.

Buliding barricades, Saturday the 5th

The invasion and consequent riot continued until dark, when the army pulled out to the entrances of the village. The following day saw similar events, just with tighter siege, a stronger military suppression and a more successful invasion. The army radio reported numerous damaged army vehicles and the use of Molotov cocktails. Though forced to walk for over an hour through the mountains, Israeli and international supporters were again successful at entering the village, and again, shortly after dark the army pulled out to the village's entrances to continue and enforce the siege.

Curfew. Sunday the 6th

Sunday however was a different story, and at 5AM a complete and very tight curfew was imposed on the village. Small groups of villagers, accompanied by Israeli supporters, attempted to walk in the streets and break the curfew, but suppression was very harsh, and the curfew breakers were quickly and frequently violently dispersed. (video)

Palestinians and Israelis breaking curfew. Sunday the 6th

The curfew continues today, Monday the 7th with even more brutal force employed by the army. Two public attempts to break the siege were made by Palestinians from surrounding villages, Israeli and international activists, who delivering basic food supplies. Both attempts were stopped by the army using teargas projectiles and rubber bullets

The morning attempt, heading towards the village's southern entrance saw the detainment of two Palestinians and one injured international. The evening attempt to break the sige from the northern entrance, which consisted of about 200 people, forced the army to alocate many of its forces inside the village to stopping the approaching demonstrators. As a result, groups of people within the village were able to break curfew and confront the army. Three people were injured trying to enter the village, including one who was shot in the forehead with a rubber coated steel bullet. Inside the village at least ten people were injured, including one who was shot in the stomach with live ammunition and had to undergo surgery.

The wall in the area, the reason for almost daily demonstrations for over a month now, is planned to practically annex 2,500 dunams (620 acres, 250 hectares) of the village's lands to the adjacent settlements, and accommodate the construction of a new neighborhood in one of them, and an industrial zone and graveyard in the other.

Hundreds of people were injured protesting in Ni'ilin in the past month and a half, over a hundred of them in the last four days