Hot spots
Ni´lin geeft niet op
29-09-2008
Ni`ilin does not give up
Adam Keller, Sept. 2008
Even Israelis who know little about what`s going on in the West Bank Palestinian villages have heard of Bil`in. They know it as `this place where the Arabs and the Anarchists are rioting all the time.` In recent months, the focus is moving to the hitherto overshadowed village of Ni`ilin.
Bil`in and Ni`ilin (and dozens of other West Bank villages) share a similar problem: the Israeli `Separation Fence` cutting through their land, leaving fields and olive groves on the other side.
Bil`in was relatively lucky last year, getting the Supreme Court in Jerusalem to order the army to re-route the Fence section built on Bil`in lands. In effect this would restore a big tract of olive groves which was slated to become a new `settlement neighbourhood.`
That did not mean any immediate change on the ground. The military authorities proved, as expected, extremely slow in implementing the court ruling. Implementation would mean, among other things, a large financial loss to well-connected real estate sharks, who looked to make a huge profit from constructing settlement housing.
After the passage of nearly a year Adv. Michael Sfard, representing the Bil`in villagers, threatened to get an injunction for contempt of court issued against the army.
Thereupon, the generals in charge presented a map of the new fence route -- which turned out to be hardly different from the old one. Adv. Sfard asked the judges to reject the army`s `ridiculous document` out of hand -- which they did, ordering the army to present a proposal more fitting with the terms of last year`s ruling.
Meanwhile, Bil`in villagers continue holding their protest processions, marching every week from the village centre to the Fence, often ending with violent confrontations, and demanding that the Israeli system comply at least with the ruling of its own Supreme Court.
Ni`ilin, some kilometres northwest of Bil`in, had also tried to use the Israeli judicial system against the land grab. Before the time of the Fence, Ni`ilin villagers were in possession of about 7,500 dunums of land (4 dunums = 1 acre); this was what was left after Ni`ilin lost in 1948 the lands which fell within the Green Line and a lot more during the occupation years, to settlement construction.
The Fence route, as originally defined by the army, would have taken away two-thirds of these 7500 dunums. The villagers appealed, and the settlers counter-appealed. After long and complicated deliberations, the judges decided to `split the difference` and authorize a new route by which the villagers would lose `only` one third of their land.
The people of Ni`ilin can`t accept this either, especially since the 2,500 dunums to be still lost include the entire property of certain families. But now, with no juridical recourse left, they can only put their own bodies on the line.
Aside from the Fence, there is still another sword hanging over the villagers` heads: according to military plans already announced but not yet finally approved, Ni`ilin`s only access road would be declared a `settlers-only road` from which Palestinians are barred. Instead, an access tunnel would generously be dug for the villages (with a gate, to which the army would possess the key and the right to open or close it at their discretion...).
And so, there were many good reasons, why army engineers and bulldozers when they arrived in May, met with stiff and stubborn resistance. Since then, there had been an average of two or three demonstrations per week.
On more than one occasion the demonstrators succeeded in reaching the work site and block the bulldozers from working for quarter or half an hour -- sometimes actually succeeding in climbing on with Palestinian flags held -- before being forcibly driven off by soldiers.
Israelis, Anarchists and sometimes others as well, came in increasing numbers to take part in the Ni`ilin struggle, as did the internationals of the ISM. They soon got to know the byways in the hills and fields all around the village, learning to outwit and outfox the soldiers instructed not to let them get in.
Aside from the `normal` use of rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs (which are supposed `only to frighten` but can cause serious damage when exploding close to a person`s body) the army tried all kinds of `creative new measures.`
A new `tear gas machine` was put into action, capable of shooting 30 canisters at once. And there was also the `Skunk`, designed to spray demonstrators with a very stinking and hard-to-remove liquid. Very unpleasant, indeed: protest had to continue while smelling the stench, and Israelis had to endure it also during the bus ride home, before they could finally change clothes and take a bath.
Nevertheless, they came back again -- and meanwhile the army announced a temporary suspension in using the Skunk, which seemed even more disturbing to soldiers in the camp where it was kept.
Things are getting grimmer with repeated army late night raids into the village, sometimes to seize `leaders` and `notorious rioters` (in one case lifting a 12-year old boy from his bed), on other occasions just to shoot tear gas at random into the houses.
On the afternoon of July 4, the army moved in to occupy Ni`ilin and impose consecutive days of curfew. Inhabitants were ordered to stay at home, and soldiers patrolling the streets assaulted violently anyone venturing to a neighbor`s home. With news of food running out, activists set out to bring in supplies from the outside, running the gauntlet of soldiers shooting at anyone approaching.
On July 8, the curfew was removed, with the army announcing that `there had been discussions between the villagers and the army commanders` in which `the villagers promised not to protest and to keep the village quiet.`
The Ni`ilin Popular Committee immediately published a rebuttal, stating that `The village will NOT be quiet! The people of Ni?ilin will not relinquish their right to protest against the confiscation of their land. The demonstrations organized in Ni?ilin are always of a peaceful, nonviolent nature, and are always met with severe force and heavy violence from the Israeli army -- and they will go on, come what may!`
The words were backed at the following day`s demonstration, with some 250 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals showing up for a new protest. (This happened to be the fourth anniversary of the Hague Court ruling that defined the Wall as illegal -- and which was violated with impunity by the Government of Israel).
Demonstrators marched through the fields, reached one of the bulldozers and managed to disable it before soldiers could arrive on the spot. The bulldozer driver got out and proceeded to throw stones at the protesters, soon joined by soldiers with their heavy use of tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs.
Demonstrators were reinforced by a large group of banner-carrying women and girls, who immediately became the soldiers` preferred target. Under clouds of tear gas, the demonstration retreated into the village, where pitched battles continued for another two hours before soldiers finished for the day and withdrew.
Altogether, seven people were wounded -- five Ni`ilin villagers, one Israeli activist and a press reporter. Four were arrested, one of them -- Hassan Yousef Musa -- so badly beaten up and sprayed with tear gas at close range that he could not stand and soldiers had to carry him into the waiting van.
...from bad to worse
The demonstration of July 30 seemed not different from dozens of earlier ones -- demonstrators advancing, confronting soldiers, retreating. Then, when it seemed about to end, the driver of an Israeli Border Guard jeep suddenly jumped off his vehicle, raised his M-16 rifle and shot from a fifty-metre distance. Ahmed Mussa, a 10-year old child who participated in the protest along with several classmates, was hit in the head and killed instantly.
Said Amireh -- one of the other boys present -- later told to journalists and human rights workers: `We were trying to cross the barbed wire and get back to the village. We last saw him near an olive tree, and then we saw the jeep coming and the soldier getting out and pointing the gun. We tried to hide and heard the shooting. He was lying on the ground, one of the boys ran and tried to pick him up and then we saw part of his skull falling to the ground` (The Independent, July 31).
The child`s killing brought international journalists to Ni`ilin, reporting on angry youths marching in the streets, senior political figures of all the feuding Palestinian factions crowding the bereaved family`s home.
The boy`s mother -- heavily pregnant -- was sitting catatonic on a sofa. An aunt, Umm Mala, spoke to journalists: `He was such a wonderful boy. He loved so much to play football, he was the best of all the boys in Arabic classes.`
In north Tel-Aviv, more than 150 Israelis -- Anarchists joined by Gush Shalom and others -- gathered with drummers marching at the head of a protest procession and with signs `Goliath killed David` / `Soldier, refuse to take part in war crimes!` / `Security cannot be built on the bodies of children` / `Hast thou robbed and also murdered?` Many carried a simple poster with the picture of the boy and the inscription: `Ahmad Moussa, 1998-2008.`
Outside the ornate lobby of the exclusive Akirov apartment tower -- home to Defence Minister Barak -- a hour-long stand-off with police, demonstrators chanting again and again `Barak, Barak, Hey hey hey, how many kids did you kill today!`
At the same hour in Ni`ilin passions ran high.
In the aftermath of the funeral, youths erected barricades of rubble on the main road, in order to bar an IDF-escorted excavator from reaching the construction site. When the shovel started clearing a path, it was driven back by a hail of stones, and some fifty soldiers started shooting wildly. One of the `crowd control` rubber coated steel bullets hit 17-year old Yusef Amireh in the head. Taken to a Ramalla hospital, he was declared brain dead.
On the following morning, the Ni`ilin villagers were reinforced by numerous Palestinians from other villages. A crowd of more than a thousand moved up towards the soldiers, carrying photos of the two victims. At first they were greeted by the usual salvos of tear gas and rubber bullets, but suddenly the soldiers -- apparently on order from higher authority -- turned back.
There were no further confrontations as the crowd advanced and thoroughly tore up the `temporary military fences`, consisting of three layers of razor wire, which had been set up along two kilometres of the Ni`ilin lands.
Three days later, the expected news came from the hospital -- Yusef Amireh was officially dead and his body released to the family for burial. That evening, forty Anarchists arrived at the home of Colonel Aviv Reshef, in charge of military operations at Ni`ilin, where they stood chanting `Come out, look us in the eye!` and `Look at the blood on your hands!` Arriving police soon ordered them away. On their firm refusal no less than 23 were dragged to the police vans and spent the night in detention.
...caught on camera
The two killings at Ni`ilin were duly reported by the Israeli media. However, the army`s perfunctory investigations, `proving` that the soldiers in both cases had `acted properly, in self-defence` were taken at face value.
A case that did shock the general public was that of a soldier firing a rubber bullet at the leg of a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner. In this case, the victim escaped with a painful toe and no permanent harm. (It was Ashraf Abu-Rahma, a Bil`in activist on a solidarity visit.)
However, a 17 year old girl, Salaam Amira, saw it all happening from the window of her nearby home and was in possession of a video camera -- such as distributed by the Israeli Human Rights organization B`tselem. After two weeks, the footage made its way into the media, appearing also on prime time Israel TV. And the army, showing no interest as long as it had only been a verbal complaint by a Palestinian, decided on an investigation.
Especially, public discussion and controversy turned on the role of Lt. Col. Omri, the commander of the Barak Battalion (no connection to the Minister) who was seen standing near the soldier when the prisoner was shot at. The colonel first denied that he had given the order, but a polygraph test proved him to be lying.
Finally, the military prosecution announced that he would be court-martialed, but only on the light charge of `conduct unbecoming an officer` -- rather than on heavier charges such as `aggravated assault.` B`tselem and other human rights groups thereupon lodged a Supreme Court appeal against the military prosecutor -- still pending at the time of writing.
Meanwhile, the army had arrested the photographer`s father, the 53-year old Jamal Amira, charging him with `organizing illegal demonstrations` and keeping him behind bars for several weeks -- letting him go only after it was exposed in the Israeli and world media.
On Sept. 17, as we go into print, the latest protest at Ni`ilin attracted some 250 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals protesting against the Fence and also commemorating the massacre at Sabra and Shatila Refugee Camps in Beirut, which happened on this date in 1982.
The action was especially distinguished by the presence of a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews, members of the fiercely anti-Zionist Neturei Karta -- making speeches condemning the theft of the Ni`ilin lands, praising the villagers` resistance, giving flowers and getting photographed.
On that day, protesters managed to get around the blocking soldiers and reached the construction site -- where they stopped the bulldozers for ten minutes. Soldiers then opened up with a heavy barrage of tear gas canisters.
Ironically, a big dose of the gas was carried by a suddenly changed wind towards a group of extreme-right Israelis, who had come to `cheer up the troops` and who scattered in confusion.
Meanwhile, soldiers chased demonstrators into the Ni`ilin village streets, stopping on their way to beat up an Israeli anti-Wall demonstrator and, before turning back, engaging in a hour of confrontations, leaving seven Palestinians wounded.
To be continued...
Bron: The Other Israel
