More on Assault on Bil’in anti-Wall Protesters
A few days ago I posted a short account of an attempt by Israeli soldier provocateurs posing as anti-Separation Wall protesters to make it look as if the nonviolent protesters were throwing rocks. The incident is getting more attention now, with more disturbing details coming out. This is an excerpt from Gush Shalom, describing what happened before the Israelis-disguised-as-protesters started throwing rocks:
All the participants - about 1000 Palestinians and 200 Israelis - undertook in advance to
avoid all violence. However, before the demo could reach the site of the fence, it was
savagely attacked by the security forces, which bombarded it with tear gas bombs
without the slightest provocation.Many of the demonstrators succeeded in going around the chain of soldiers, but clashed
further on with a second chain and were attacked with tear gas. The first section of the
demo, which included the former Palestinian minister Kadduri Fares, presidential candidate
Mustafa Barghouti, Uri Avnery and Knesset members Barakeh, Dahamshe and Sakhalka,
got to within 50 meters of the bulldozers, when they were viciously attacked. A tear gas
bomb was thrown between the feet of MK Barakeh from a distance of less than a meter.
Barakeh was slightly wounded. A soldier pushed Avnery violently and threw him down.Only then the reason for this violence became clear: for the first time, a special unit of
the Prison Service, called Massada, was put into action, using new means of riot control,
such as specially painful plastic bullets covered with salt, pepper bombs and more.
Several demonstrators, both Israeli and Palestinian, were wounded.
I’ve mentioned before my interest in the ongoing Bil’in protests, not just because of the political implications but also on a more personal level because I visited Bil’in in January with the FFIPP delegation I travelled with. Villagers took us to see where the Separation Wall would be built, and pointed to the Israeli settlements expanding in their direction. This earlier account has a few relevant photos; there are a few more in my website’s Israel/Palestine Photo Galleries.