This Friday’s demos were themed in respect to the Deir Yassin massacre. In Bil’in, the village committee and B’tselem photographer (who’s videos you often see here) and dear friend, Haitham Al-Khatib, was abducted near the end of the demonstration. Al-Khatib was returned home, battered and bruised, after over 24 hours in which he was unreachable.
Around 200 Palestinians, Israelis and internationals walk from the Nativity Square to the direction of Jerusalem, against the restrictions imposed by the Israelis especially restrictions on the right to worship and freedom of movement as many Christians will not be able to go to Jerusalem to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem. The crowd managed to outnumber and surprise the Israeli soldiers and security forces at Bethlehem checkpoint and managed to walk through. After having walked 300 meters on the road to Jerusalem, they were stopped by Israeli soldiers. After having declared the march over and as they were walking back to Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers attacked the crowd and violently arrested around 15 persons, among them a Palestinian cameran, an Israeli photographers, members of the popular committee from Al Ma’sara, and staff from Holy Trust.
In spite of the latest Israeli army attempts to stop the demonstrations against the wall, about 50 Israelis and 25 internationals joined Bil’in residents in protest. After the demonstration was declared over, the army infiltrated the village and fired gas and shock grenades at the youth, protecting their village with stones.
In Nebi Salah The soldiers were eager and waiting, within the village when the march had reached its outskirts. Under the cover of the clashes between the army and the village youth, some villagers managed to reach their natural spring, only to find settlers swimming in it. Soldiers who eventually got to the group politely ordered the settlers to leave, while attacking the demonstrators with tear-gas in order to push them back to the village. The two groups had regrouped back in the village, where Border Police officers shot at demonstrators from behind the stone terraces that crosshatch the fields between the village and the settlement. It took the army until seven in the evening to retreat:
The injured 14 year old boy, Ehab Barghouthi, has awaken from his coma, caused by a rubber coated bullet to his head, fired by an Israeli army Soldier.
The Bil’in weekly demonstration brutally suppressed by soldier’s infiltration into the village, for the the third week in a row. Youth and children fight back to save their land: