Bilin Nightwatchmen

Over the last week and a half, Bi'lin has been raided almost every night and men and young boys have been arrested and dragged out of their beds. So we got a call from the head of the popular committee of Bi'lin to send some internationals. I arrived yesterday and went on night patrol all night with men from the popular committee. Over the course of the night we saw 6 lorries let out soldiers in the darkness. They stayed out of site using the hills as cover and we did similar in the village. Everyone in the village gets the alarm (there are only 1500 people living here so any person arrested is a big deal and everyone knows them and their family). We try to stay in the darkness and quiet. Its a bit creepy knowing that some trigger happy 18 year old israeli soldier might decide to blow your brains out at any second, but you just put that thought out of your head and its a lot easier. We stayed vigilant in the dark and no one in Bi'lin ended up getting raided last night.

However, we found out that the soldiers circumvented us and raided the nearby village of Kafr ni'ma. We are going out again every night till the raids stop (so I will be going out again in 30 mins). The others in my original group are still split off in Nablus and Hebron and hopefully one of them will get to a computer to blog about their experiences soon.

Israeli forces arrest 24 solidarity activists and 2 hired Palestinian Israeli Drivers!!

For Immediate Release
27 June 2009: Israeli forces arrest 24 solidarity activists and 2 hired Palestinian Israeli drivers in the West Bank village of Saffa.

At 7.30am, 35 Israeli and 10 international solidarity activists joined 3 Palestinian families from Beit Ummar to harvest their land. As the group tried to go down to their lands, 50 soldiers and border policemen stopped them.

Before reaching the land, Israeli forces arrested 10 Israeli and international activists, under the premise that Saffa was under a Closed Military Zone*. The army was aggressive towards the group and used violence against them.

After pushing the group, border policemen arrested another 9 activists.
Yousef Abu Maria from the Palestine Solidarity Project, had his leg broken from the use of excessive force. Israeli soldiers tried to arrest him, but the solidarity activists negotiated for the soldiers to release him and allow him to be taken by an ambulance from the Palestinian Red Crescent. He is currently being treated at a Hebron hospital.

A female Israeli activist from Tayyoush was also injured and is currently at an Israeli hospital seeking treatment for a potentially broken hand.

As 2 cars with hired drivers were leaving the area with other activists, Israeli forces stopped them and arrested 5 more activists and the 2 Palestinian Israeli drivers.
The arrested were taken to the Israeli prison in the illegal settlement of Gush Etzion.

Please Contact:
Sahar Vardi (Hebrew & English) 054-568-3419

Bekah Wolf, International Coordinator for PSP (English) 054-203-7539
Sasha Solanas, ISM Media Office (Russian & English) 054-903-2981

The activists are members from Palestine Solidarity Project, Tayyoush, Anarchists Against the Wall, and the International Solidarity Movement. They have been accompanying Palestinian farmers to document and deter violence from Israeli forces as the farmers harvest their land.
Last Saturday, 8 Israeli activists were arrested as they accompanied Palestinian farmers.
*Israeli forces have declared the area in Saffa a Closed Military Zone (CMZ), in direct violation of an Israeli Supreme Court decision. The Israeli Supreme Court determined that Closed Military Zones cannot be issued on Palestinian agricultural land, cutting off Palestinian farmers, for prolonged periods of time. However, Israeli forces have been regularly declaring a Closed Military Zone on farm land in Saffa since 2 April 2009.

Some confrontations with soldiers.

We received an urgent distress call from Silwan last night that they thought that the bulldozers were to come this morning. I wont get into the details about how they knew or in the preparations that went into Silwan's defense. But I will say that they were extensive and if the Israeli military wants to come demolish homes, there will be an incredible and forceful defense. After arriving at 5am, we waited for hours for the inevitable onslaught which never came. While waiting we heard that Israeli soldiers were spotted in force with bulldozers in Esewiyeh in Jerusalem.

We arrived at around noon to find the soldiers already taking up residence in front of several houses, and on a hill overlooking us.
We found from the beginning that the Border Guards were going to try to impede our movement. They called it a "closed military zone". When we asked why, they refused to tell us and they also refused to show us written proof.

We tried walking around, but the border guards became angry and started yelling at us. They called in several police cars as backup. The head officer demanded our passports, which we were not carrying. He photographed us, but we stayed firm that we wanted to know what was going on. This left some heated discussions with the police and border guards.

Sky news, Reuters, and AFP showed up and the border guards let them through. They did try to intimidate the Palestinian children with dogs that they had. We found out that what they didn't want us to. There was construction going on further up the hill. It seemed possible that they were constructing a temporary separating ramp in order to cleave the outlying houses in east jerusalem from a massive hill where a settlement could possible connect with Male Adumim. (the largest settlement bloc in the west bank) This would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

Sheikh Jarrah Families Go To Court.

Another family in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem went to court today over a settler's claim. We went with them to show solidarity and to make a statement for everyone there. The more spectacle and attention we can bring to these cases, the less likely they will try to ethnically cleanse additional families and the more likely the pressure could affect the likelyhood that the police force the families out.

The security at the court thought that they were being snide by refusing to let us assemble on the same side of the street as the court. (because it was in the shade) So we just put on tons of sunscreen and walked directly opposite the court entrance so that everyone that went near had to pass us.

Updates on our other comrades:

Nablus: One of our group went to Nablus and took part in a demonstration on friday to prevent the closure of the main gate out of the city. The day afterwords they took part in treeplanting. (which is really really hard work with the soil here)

Sousia: Settlers burned down a bedoin tent. (thankfully, the family wasn't inside it at the time)

Beit Omar: Seven Israelis activists in Tayoush were arrested after they approached soldiers who were watching settlers throw rocks at Palestinians and demanded that they do something. One of the Israelis had a document proving that settler encroachment was illegal. None of the Internationals or Palestinians who were there were arrested.

Splitting up

Due to the amount of activity happening here, we decided to split up. One of us went to Hebron, another to Nablus. I cant speak for what they are doing and they promised to blog when they get internet access.

I spent the last 3 days deathly ill from something I ate. That didn't stop me from going to the protest in N'ilin (which in retrospect was a really stupid idea given my condition) and though I dodged most of the teargas (as pictured left) I still managed to throw up quite a lot. After not being able to eat for 72 hours, my friends brought me to a hospital. I feel really drained but immensely better.

As for what has been going on:

The N'ilin protest was rather tame by comparison to the usual ones. The israeli soldiers had some media with them so they didn't use any live ammunition (they usually fire 22 caliber bullets) and even the amount of tear gas wasn't the norm. This allowed the Palestinan youth ample time to cut through extensive amounts of barbed wire. As far as I could tell no one was injured at the protest, though one media report says 3 Israeli soldiers were hurt. This was an obvious fabrication given the distance of the soldiers and the fact that every rock thrown fell 100 meters short.

Silwan: Today members of the Silwan community in East Jerusalem cleared out the rubble of a house that was recently bulldozed. They hope to reconstruct the house there again and to act defiantly to the proposed demolition of an additional 88 houses that are planned in the next few weeks

Jenin: Today near the Jenin refugee camp, olive trees were planted to make up for the many groves that have been uprooted by settlers and the military.

Updates and Arrested Friends

Two internationals were arrested in Beit Omar on Saturday morning for escorting Palestinian farmers to their farm lands. The Israeli Army had declared it a "closed military zone" which they have done often as a way of destroying the farms that Palestinians work on and making life impossible for them. The two had gone saturday morning and at first had been targets of settler violence as rocks were hurled at them. Next a police jeep arrived and tried to arrest one of the Palestinian farmers. The internationals tried to protect the palestinian and had him guarded for 20 minutes before the police took out their batons and beat them away. They stayed somewhat firm and were themselves arrested, while the Palestinian was able to get free.


They were in jail for about 12 hours without any food or water and were brough to a judge who said that they were banned from Beit Omar for 2 weeks.



Last night we got back to Sheikh Jarrah from Ramallah and a concert had been organized at the tent where the evicted woman is staying. Bands from Italy and Norway were playing to support the cause of the families fighting eviction. Lots of people came from all around to watch it. Settlers also came out of their houses to gather up the road and to intimidate women that walked nearby.

One of the Norwegian Band members told us that they had also played in Hebron and the settler kids stole their water and tried smashing their equipment. After their show in Hebron, one of the kids even tried to knife them. Settlers are scary.



Today is the last day that the court gave the Hannoun family to give 50,000 dollars as collateral to the court that they will leave by July 19th. We are worried that the patriarch of the family may be arrested again in the near future.

B'ilin and Ni'lin Protest Reportbacks

Maria and I went to B'ilin while Joe went with the Brits to the Ni'lin protests which happened simultaneously (he will write about his encounter when he gets back).

B'ilin is situated in the West Bank somewhat near Jerusalem. Part of Israelis separation wall is being built through it at the expense of its 1800 inhabitants. It also separates the town from 60 percent of its farming land. Protests have occurred there every friday for the last 4 years with support from internationals and Israelis. A protester was recently killed there at a protest and today, protesters carried his picture on top of metal sheilds towards the wall.

The Code Pink Delegation went to the B'ilin protest too and joined the march with a group of folks from Anarchists Against the Wall and some Israeli independent journalists... some folks from the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions was also there. The main protest took off from the village square after noon prayers following the local Palestinian committee and tons of Palestinian flags.

As soon as the march got near a barbed wire pen in front of the wall, one of the Palestinians used a big pair of bolt cutters to start cutting. At that second, the Israeli soldiers begin firing tear gas at us from their defensive position behind the wall.Some of the Palestinian youth (called "shabab" in arabic) began slinging stones at the Israeli position. The israelis kept firing tear gas at a near constant rate for the duration of the protest. Occasionally they also fired rubber bullets. One of the Palestinians was hurt during the protest, but it wasn't serious and he went right back to it.

After getting beaten back by volleys of tear gas, the main protest went right back up the hill towards the wall to get another devestating amount of tear gas canasters shot at them. Some didn't explode and the Shabab picked them up and hurled them back at the Israeli soldiers. When it became clear that the main gate of the fence was getting too many rubber bullets, the youth turned to a fence adjecent to it. A constant barrage of tear gas on them eventually forced them out. And with that, the protest was over. These protests happen every week and every week are met with intense violent reactions from the Israeli soldiers.

Joe will update soon on his attendence of the Ni'lin demonstration