[News] Palestinians break Israel's wall
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Nov 9 13:07:45 EST 2009
2 articles follow
Palestinians break Israel's wall
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/2009119151639325464.html
Palestinians and foreign activists have torn down
segments of Israel's separation wall in a
demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In the town of Qalandiya in the occupied West
Bank, a group of masked activists using a lorry
pulled down a two-metre cement block before
Israeli security forces confronted them with tear gas grenades.
Several of the estimated 50 demonstrators passed
through the hole they had made, hoisting a
Palestinian flag and setting ablaze tyres on the other side.
Protesters were wearing shirts with the text
"Jerusalem we are coming", which was the slogan for the protest.
Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People's
Campaign to Fight the Wall, said: "Today we
commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
"This is the beginning of the activities, which
we do, to express our hold on our land, and our
refusal to this wall - the wall of torture, the wall of humiliation."
Activists have vowed to hold a week of protests
in the Palestinian territories and around the
world, including a campaign calling for the
release of all anti-wall activists currently imprisoned.
Last Friday, Palestinian youths almost toppled a
segment of wall using a hydraulic car-jack in the West Bank village of Nilin.
Regular protests
Protests against the wall have become a regular
event in Nilin and in the nearby village of
Bilin, where Palestinian, international and
Israeli activists are commonly confronted by tear
gas and rubber bullets fired by Israeli troops.
Israel began building its barrier, consisting of
fences and walls, in 2002, citing security reasons.
The wall is up to 8m high in places, twice the
height of the former Berlin wall. Palestinian
sources anticipate that it may be more than
750km-long when construction is finished, more
than four times the length of the Berlin wall.
Palestinians say the route of the wall has been
set in such a way that it grabs land that could
have been included in a future Palestinian state.
The International Court of Justice, in a
non-binding decision in 2004, said the
Israeli-built barrier was illegal and should be
taken down because it crossed into occupied territory.
A report by Stop the Wall, a Palestinian
coalition of NGOs opposed to the wall, said that
in 2007 alone, Israel demolished more than 160
houses and appropriated more than 3sq km of land
in the Palestinian West Bank in its construction of the wall.
***********************************************
Four years of demonstrating against the Wall in southern Bethlehem
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7513
24.10.09 - 20:00
Bethlehem / PNN During the demonstration
marking four years of popular resistance in
southern Bethlehem, the march zigzagged through the village of Al Masara.
The territory of the southern Bethlehem villages
is being steadily confiscated for the Wall and
the expansion of the Efrat Settlement and the
roads that go along with an increasing settler
population. Six villages are being cut off from
reasonable access to the city just to the north.
Foreign and Israeli activists joined the march
after noon prayers in solidarity with
Palestinians. The group held signs and called to
achieve national goals, such as a state, Jerusalem, and the Right of Return.
Demonstrators headed toward the Wall in a
symbolic effort to reach their lands on the other
side. But as usual for this weekly march, they
found Israeli soldiers and rolls of razor wire in their path.
On the spot organizers Mahmoud Zwahra and
Mohammed Brajiya both delivered speeches, along
with other officials. They talked about the right
of the Palestinian people to resist occupation,
stressing that demonstrations like Fridays would
continue until justice was achieved.
The events of the past years were reviewed,
including the early stages of the local
resistance. Demonstrators made a move to remove
the razor wire laid across the road in their
path, resulting in several beatings by Israeli soldiers.
A memorial was also held for Qaher Mousa Aladdin,
a member of the Popular Committee against the
Wall who was killed in a road accident while filming a documentary on the Wall.
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