Light at end of tunnel
28/04/2010
Source : Khaleej Times
BILI’IN (Near Ramallah) — The wailing ambulance tore through the crowd of several hundred Palestinian, Israeli and foreign activists, speeding along the narrow road which winds through the hills of the village of Bili’in near Ramallah in the central Palestinian West Bank. Emad Rezqa, 43, an Israeli-Arab from Jaffa in Israel lay bleeding and seriously injured in the back of the ambulance with a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage.
A high-velocity teargas canister, designed to penetrate walls, had been aimed directly at his forehead by Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians were protesting the continued expropriation of their land by the Israeli authorities.
The agricultural village of Bili’in, with a population of approximately 1,700 people, originally owned 4,000 dunums of land (1 dunum = 0.1 hectare).
But, since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank following the 1967 war, it has lost well over half of its land to the nearby illegal Israeli settlements and the separation barrier.
Israel has expropriated land from many West Bank villages, towns and cities to build new and expand illegal settlements and for the construction of the separation barrier which divides Israel proper from the Palestinian territory.
The barrier, which comprises fences, walls and trenches, when completed will be more than 700 kilometres long, much of it built within the West Bank on Palestinian land.
The International Court at the Hague ruled Israel’s barrier illegal while the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the path of the wall to be rerouted in 2007 stating that its current route was illegal.
Construction of the barrier began in 2002 following a wave of suicide bombings during the second Palestinian Intifadah or uprising which began in 2000.
However, the separation barrier veers far off the internationally recognised armistice Green Line and through Palestinian territory, separating Palestinians from their land and farmers from their agricultural fields, economically decimating entire communities.
Nearly 500,000 Palestinians have been affected by the barrier which makes accessing schools, hospitals, farmland and family difficult.
Furthermore, according to Israeli plans, the barrier has been built to accommodate further expansion and the building of more settlements as well as swallowing swathes of land to surround the settlements for their “security”.
It is against this massive land grab that Palestinians, and their Israeli and international supporters, have been carrying out regular Friday protests in a number of West Bank villages facing continued land confiscations.
Rezqa is the latest person to be targeted with a teargas canister. American activist Tristan Anderson remains in a vegetative state in an Israeli hospital after he too was shot in the forehead with a teargas canister which fractured his skull last year.
Bili’in resident Bassem Abu Rahme, 29, was the 18th person to die during protests against the wall in the Palestinian territories last year when he was also shot in the chest with a high-velocity teargas canister.
According to Israeli Defence Force (IDF) regulations the potentially lethal canisters are meant to be fired in an upward arc over the heads of protestors, not directly at them.
In addition to the court victories ruling the wall illegal, Bil’in commenced legal proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec in Canada in 2008 against two Canadian companies, Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc.
These two companies are involved in constructing, marketing and selling residential units in the illegal Modi’in settlement which abuts Bili’in village and which has been built on Bili’in land.
To mark its five-year struggle, its achievements and coordinate future activities Bili’n held a three-day conference last week.
The conference was attended by over a hundred internationals from a number of organisations, including members of the European parliament and members of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
“We have mixed feelings today. On the one hand there is a feeling of sadness when we recall the needless injuries, deaths of friends and those imprisoned,” said Muhammad Khatib from Bili’in’s Popular Struggle Committee.
“But at the same time we are optimistic about the future and feel a sense of strength and courage.
“Despite the occupation, violence and economic hardships we have suffered from the settlers and the settlements, we believe we are on a victorious path with no return,” Khatib told Khaleej Times.
“We are changing facts on the ground. We are witnessing non-violent protests spreading to other areas of the West Bank. The protest movement is growing.
“In addition to this there is increasing international awareness of the Palestinian perspective of the conflict and solidarity with our cause,” added Khatib.
Nevertheless, inevitably the Palestinians will continue to pay a high price for their defiance with more injuries, deaths and arrests.
Alarmed at the escalating opposition, the Israeli authorities have embarked on a sweeping arrest campaign against the organisers of the non-violent demonstrations, as well as the participants, with many grassroots activists arrested during night raids.
One of the main organisers from the Popular Struggle Committee Abdallah Abu Rahme spoke with Khaleej Times at the beginning of December last year shortly before he was arrested and after he had gone into hiding.
“I’m not afraid of being arrested. If that is the price I have to pay so be it,” said the school teacher.
Abu Rahme continues to languish in administrative detention, or imprisonment without trial, in Israel’s notorious Ofer prison near Ramallah.
One of the charges levelled against him was being in possession of illegal arms. This relates to his collection of spent teargas canisters and rubber-coated metal bullets, fired at protesters by Israeli soldiers, which he had arranged into a peace sign.
