INTERNATIONALS BEATEN AND PALESTINIANS WOUNDED DURING ANTI-WALL DEMO IN WEST BANK

Internationals from the International Solidarity Movement and the International Women’s Peace Service today joined with Israeli peace activists to support the village of Bil’in in their second day of resistance to the construction of the Apartheid Wall. Approximately 150 men, women, and children from Bil’in walked onto their confiscated land and halted surveying work.

During the demonstration, plastic-coated bullets, tear gas, sound bombs and batons were used by the Israeli soldiers and border police against the demonstrators. Five Palestinians were wounded, and three Internationals and four Israeli activists were beaten and arrested. Soldiers and construction workers eventually left at 1.30pm.

Construction of the Wall began in this area yesterday, when the villagers nonviolently halted bulldozers. Bil’in village, located in the Ramallah region of the West Bank, has a population of 1,500 people. The village farmers own 4000 dunums of land, 2,380 dunums of which has been confiscated for the Wall construction and given a nearby illegal Israeli settlement . This land includes up to 3,000 olive trees.

Shortly into the demonstration, when Palestinians halted surveying work,soldiers began to fire tear gas and sound grenades into the crowd.

The Israeli group Anarchists Against the Wall arrived and were immediately targeted by border police, who arrested four Israeli activists as they attempted to protect Palestinians and Internationals. One sound bomb was deliberately thrown at a Palestinian man, who was wounded in the neck and hand when it exploded. As he was carried away by four other Palestinians, the soldiers again fired sound bombs directly at them. Stun grenades, tear gas, and plastic-coated bullets were continuously used from this time on. Soldiers and border police began to drive the demonstrators back, using physical force and were repeatly beating protestors with batons.

At approximately 9.45am, a Palestinian man was violently beaten and detained by soldiers; he was later released. The Israeli soldiers and police then appeared to target Internationals with video cameras. A group of military personnel grabbed a young American ISM woman who was filming, and then began beating her. They also severely beat and injured a young British ISM man who tried to protect her who had earlier received severe baton blows while trying to protect the Palestinian man.

After repeated baton blows, they removed the Internationals and arrested them. Shortly afterwards, another International woman who had filmed both events was also arrested.

The soldiers forced the demonstration up the hill into the village. They remained on the edge of the village for some time, continuing to target the children defending their land by stone-throwing, with sound bombs, tear gas, and plastic-covered bullets. Five Palestinian men were wounded, three of whom were hospitalised. One was injured by beating, two by sound grenades, and two were shot with plastic-coated bullets, one in the stomach and one in the back.

ISM Journal from Leila - Bil'in Demo, Dec 15.

I am going back to the hostel to look at film from yesterday's demo at Bil'in, which seems as if it is very good documentation of the violence of soldiers towards Palestinians. I hope so, because the woman who filmed it is being deported as a result. But she got her footage out, and I hope this is some comfort to her.

It was so crazy, you know? First of all it felt a bit like a street demo. The people go onto their land. Then the soldiers, who were some distance away, come down to tell them they can't be there. So some stay there but some go to another bit. So then the soldiers go to tell THAT lot they can't be THERE. It was a lot like that irritating scenario you get with the police and protesters in the UK where one group draws an imaginary line which they don't want the other group to cross, so then that group tries to cross it, so the imnaginary line moves, etc etc. Except all over steep hills and a deep valley and rocky rough ground with trees.

But all of sudden it's not familiar because a soldier pulls out a tear gas cannister and throws it amongst us - BANG - smoke. The shebab (teenage and young men) and children scatter shouting - they respond to everything in a fairly skittish way. We and most of the grown ups try to stand our ground, or move calmly if we have to. But there are more bangs - sound grenades are now mixed in with the gas - and more smoke, and people are shouting because you have to let those around you know when the soldiers are taking aim, when something is coming in your direction, when someone is hurt and needs help. And if you don't see these cannisters thrown or fired then you don't see them till they land beside you or hit you, unless someone shouts.

And first you think it is ok because you can see the smoke, and it clears well on the hillside. But then you realise actually the white smoke is only part of it, the gas that affects you is invisible, you don't know it will get you till it does. I only get a taste of the burning of it, but others fall to the ground trying to catch their breathe, unable to see. People crush onions and lemons in their hands, hand them to each other, to breathe in to trigger their lungs to start up again. J, the Kiwi woman, has some green tea perfume she swears by for this.

Trying to look in all directions at once, I see a soldier take aim at a Palestian man only yards away, and throw a sound grenade directly at him. It explodes and he falls to the ground, he cries out and puts his hands to his head; four men run to carry him away. It is a long way to a road, and we are in the countryside, I don't know where the nearest ambulance might be. Soldiers keep aiming at them as they try to run up the hill.

Palestinian shout angrily at this direct attack on unarmed people, Israeli soldiers shout back at them, I presume to leave, to move. A woman stands in the middle of the crowd, berating the soldiers at the top of her voice. Someone near me says that she is shouting - "you shot my husband, my brother, my son, now I want to die here, on the land." A younger woman tries to stay near her, whenever I catch sight of her she is clutching the same rock in her hand, as if she wants to throw it but knows how pointless it will be, or that she isn't strong enough to throw it far enough, or maybe just it makes her feel safer somehow.

The tension has heightened and suddenly the soldiers are aiming their guns, about to shoot plastic bullets. Many voices call out, in rage and despair - all I know understand of it is what us internationals are calling - variations along the lines of - "No-one is armed here!" "Why are you doing this? How can you do this?" "Please calm down!" "Shalom, shalom!" and "Schwee, schee" (slow, slow) to the Palestinians.

We try to move to leave no Palestinians unguarded, but there are not so many of us. I put myself somewhere between two groups of villagers, glancing back and forth between them, and to the soldiers, one particularly who is aiming for various men on the other side of me and only has to pull the trigger.

My arms are outstretched, spread wide, palms up, briefly we all freeze. I face the soldiers, the Palestinians are behind me. "Please don't do this." I call to them. "Please." My knees are trembling, but what I feel is just intensity and focus, as if with my body and my voice I must and can somehow keep people from dying today...

...later, after four Palestinians have been wounded with plastic bullets and sound bombs, I see these young Israeli soldiers who seemed to have such normal faces, viciously beating my new mate T, who is just 20 and so outraged at what he has just seen. T is shielding a Palestinian man who was already bleeding from the baton blows he recieved before T threw himself into the middle of the soldiers to take the blows instead... then somehow the Palestinian is dragged away but then they have K who was filming, who I was buddied up with - I try to get to them but I only get a grip on her jumper, she and T are clutching each other and have no limbs left to grab me, each time I almost get a grip the soldiers throw me back - I hear the blows fall on their shoulders - K throws her camera to me -

they are dragging them up the hill and other soldiers run forward to grab more of us -

I can't believe we are losing them both at once. K, who has worked months in a refugee camp, teaching women to use computers, teenagers to make films and documentaries, and who had months of projects planned. The Israeli authorities know this, and they will put her on the next plane out of here. T, who is a student, and new to all this sort of thing, and was only training with me yesterday, and is such a sweetheart.

And in the end, they are getting beaten and arrested because they have looked at Palestinians and seen fellow human beings. And known that no human beings deserve to live like this.