2009-01-26

Two shot with live ammunition at Ni´lin prayer demonstration

from International Solidarity Movement

On Friday the 23rd of January the people of Ni’lin continued their struggle against the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall.

About 100 people participated in the Friday prayer demonstration. The army once again invaded the village causing 15 injuries, two of which were caused by live ammunition.

The Friday demonstration started around 12.30 after the prayer next to the clinic. The demonstrators went out to the field and were attacked by the occupation army with tear gas, as well as rubber and plastic coated steel bullets. After 20 minutes of attacking the demonstrators in the olive groves the army invaded the village.

The soldiers invaded the village from the main road and the olive groves taking up several positions in the town. Soldiers were at the clinic and the main street, coming by foot to the town centre and into the old city. The shot tear gas, rubber-coated steal bullets, sound bombs and live ammunition towards the people of Ni’lin. Two were hit in the leg with live ammunition and required medical treatment.

The whole town was affected by the military incursion as people took shelter from the attack in their homes and shops. Teargas landed in many places in the town away from any demonstrators and one person was injured when a canister hit his head in the old town of Ni’lin. Teargas canisters were deliberately aimed at houses and frightened people when they were being targeted close to the petrol station. 

Teargas was fired at the mosque and entered some houses through the windows. Soldiers in the main street used speakers to make a high pitched alarm, known as the ’scream’, to panic and disorientate the demonstrators and later they played classical music as they shot at people.

The soldiers occupying the medical centre removed the Palestinian flags that were at Arafat and Mohamed al Khawadja’s graves who were the two youths murdered recently on the 28th December for participating in a demonstration. Other soldiers positioned in the side streets closest to the olive field destroyed crops and untied a donkey in one families land.

The demonstration ended around 4.30 pm when the army withdrew from the town. In total 15 people were injured by the army. This is the fourth consecutive demonstration where the army has aggressively occupied the town of Ni’lin during the demonstration and collectively punishing the entire village for opposition to the Apartheid Wall. 

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