Bil'in residents cautious following Supreme Court order to move the annexation wall
The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the second proposed route of the annexation barrier proposed by the Israeli military is illegal.  The High Court judges concluded following the court session that the route presented by the Israeli State did not conform to the previous court ruling from September 2007.
http://www.palsolid arity.org/ main/2008/ 12/16/bilin- residents- cautious- following- supreme-court- order-to- move-the- annexation- wall/

Imad Mohammed Yassin Burnat, 36 years old, from the village of Bil'in and a young father of four children, joined the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil'in from the moment they started to destroy the Israeli bulldozers on Bil'in’s land. He was the first person injured by the Israeli army in Bin’in’s resistance. He was chosen from among his colleagues to be the videographer of the Popular Committee in order to monitor and document the violence, brutality, and repression of the occupation soldiers.

In the first year of the Wall in Bil'in, the Israeli army tried to use various methods to discourage the demonstrators from continuing their resistance. This included nightly raids of the village, where soldiers surrounded the homes of activists, fired stun grenades and forced the youth out of their homes and handcuffed them. The soldiers also tortured, humiliated, and sometimes arrested them. Imad, his colleagues, and a group of international peace activists who lived in the village started to document the activities of soldiers with intent to prosecute them. This encouraged the people of the village, increased their defiance and steadfastness and melted their fear. It also eased the pace of violence by soldiers for fear of prosecution in the courts.

Imad has participated in all of Bil’in’s demonstrations with his camera, in order to capture all violations of the soldiers against the protesters. His determination and creativity were present night and day, constantly welcoming guests and delegations. The words most commonly spoken by him were “my friends do not be afraid, this camera is your guard, and all that you do is documented.”

http://www.imemc.org/article/57840

This is a beautiful story, Zahra. Thank you for sharing it. Though the situation is dire and the violence and injustice are infuriating, the joining of voices from Israel, Palestine and the world is wonderful and growing. The perseverance and courage of all the participants is an inspiration, and the media coverage, though still mostly Eastern, is a good sign.
I hope it is enough to help Bal'in regain their ancestral olive orchards.
I get so sad and angry that I shake every time I think about those hardy, life-giving, history and pride bearing, trees, nurtured by generations, being uprooted, destroyed, to make 'room' for something so 'quick', so valueless, as a home, road, or yard. (rant, sorry)

The news though, is looking up, and you have done a great job sharing it here.
 

Bil'in Arabic: بلعين‎ is a Palestinian village located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 12 kilometers (7 mi) west of the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank. It is adjacent to the Israeli West Bank barrier and the Israeli settlement of Modi'in Illit. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Bil'in was occupied by Israeli forces. Since the signing of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1995, it has been administered by the Palestinian National Authority.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Bil'in has a population of 1,800, mostly Muslims. The main economic activity is agriculture. Bil'in is considered an ideological stronghold of Fatah, and many employees of the Palestinian Authority reside there.

Bil'in is located 4 kilometers east of the Green Line, near the Israeli West Bank barrier, a barrier that was held by the International Court of Justice to be contrary to international law on 9 July 2004. A week before the International Court of Justice gave this Advisory Opinion, the High Court of Israel gave a ruling on a 40-kilometre strip of the Wall in which it held that, while Israel as the Occupying Power had the right to construct the Wall to ensure security and that substantial sections of the Wall imposed undue hardships on Palestinians and had to be re-routed. Moreover, on September 4, 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to redraw the path of the wall because the current route was deemed "highly prejudicial" to the villagers of Bil'in. Chief Justice Dorit Beinish wrote in the ruling, "We were not convinced that it is necessary for security-military reasons to retain the current route that passes on Bilin’s lands." The case was filed two years previously by the local council leader of Bilin, Ahmed Issa Abdullah Yassin, who hired Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard to argue the case. The Israeli Defence Ministry says it will respect the ruling.

 On September 5, 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to legalize the Israeli settlement of Mattiyahu East (part of Modi'in Illit's exspansion), built on a disputed portion of Bil'in's land to the west of the wall, The village of Bil'in has vowed to continue its resistance against the wall and settlements on its land, and offered support to other villages facing similar problems.The barrier separates the village from 60 percent of its farming land. A new neighborhood of Modi'in Illit is being constructed on part of this land.The settlements around Bil'in are said to be funded by Israeli businessmen Lev Leviev and Shaya Boymelgreen who are thereby promoting their political and economic interests.

 Since January 2005, the village has been organizing weekly protests against the construction of the barrier. The protests have attracted media attention and the participation of left-wing groups such as Gush Shalom, Anarchists Against the Wall and the International Solidarity Movement. The protests take the form of marches from the village to the site the barrier with the aim of halting construction and dismantling already constructed portions. The protests often end in stonethrowing and rioting in which both protesters and soldiers have been injured.] In July 2005, activists entered a metal box placed on the route of the barrier, halting its construction for a short time.

Serious clashes between protesters and Israeli forces took place in September 2005 and March 2006. Solidarity conferences were held in the village in February 2006 and April 2007. Jonathan Pollak from Anarchists Against the Wall has been injured on numerous occasions and is a regular at the protest demonstrations.Amongst the injuries Pollak has received includes a head injury on April 3, 2005. An Israeli soldier shot Pollak in the head with a teargas canister from an M-16, from a distance of approximately thirty meters at a protest against the Wall in the Bil'in. This left him with two internal brain hemorrhages and a wound requiring 23 stitches.

On 11 August 2006 Lymor Goldstein, an Israeli Lawyer was shot in head twice with rubber coated metal bullets, sustaining serious injuries.

Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan, who won the prize in 1976 for her work in the Northern Ireland dispute, on Friday, April 20, 2007, was hit in the leg by a rubber coated steel bullet and reportedly inhaled large quantities of teargas during a non-violent demonstration.

On June 6, 2008, European Parliament vice-president Luisa Morgantini and Julio Toscano, an Italian judge, were injured at a protest in Bil'in. On 7 July 2008 Ashraf Abu Rahma of Bil'in was filmed by 17 year-old Salam Kanaan at an anti-barrier demonstration in Ni'lin where an Israeli battalion commander (Lt. Col. Omri Bruberg of Armored Battalion 71) is holding Ashraf, a handcuffed and blindfolded detainee, while a subordinate shoots the detainee in the foot. A polygraph test on Tuesday 29 July 2008 has cast doubts on the testimony of Lt. Col Bruberg. After meeting with OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, Bruberg agreed to take a 10-day leave of absence while IDF Judge Advocate-General Brig.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblitt makes the decision of whether or not to press charges against the battalion commander.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bil%27in#cite_note-20

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Discover Bil'in

Ni'lin Arabic: نعلين ‎ is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the West Bank, located 17 kilometers west of Ramallah. Ni'lin is about 3 kilometers east of the 1949 Armistice Line (Green Line) bordered by Deir Qaddis, the Israeli settlements of Nili and Na'aleh to the northeast, the village of al-Midya and Modi'in Illit (Kiryat Sefer) settlement bloc are to the south, Budrus (4km) and Qibya (5km) villages are located to the northwest.

The town's total land area consists of approximately 15,000 dunams of which 660 is urban. Under the Oslo II 93.3% of town lands has been classed as 'Area C'.Most of the town's inhabitants rely on agriculture for income and prior to the outbreak of the Second Intifada, many had jobs in construction in Israel.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of approximately 4,750 inhabitants in mid-year 2006. Situated 262 meters (860 feet) above sea level, Ni'lin has mild winters and hot, dry summers with temperatures averaging 32°C (88°F) during the day.


The residents of Ni'lin and international activists, have been staging weekly demonstrations against a nearby expansion of the Israeli West Bank barrier. It is estimated that the completion of the barrier will remove 1/3 of Ni'lin's land.

In the first of escalating incidents at the anti-barrier protest demonstrations led to the fatal shooting of 10-year-old Ahmed Moussa on 29 July 2008.

The incident occurred when a group of mostly teenage boys had gone to the barrier construction site outside Ni'ilin, where there were no security personnel, the boys began removing razor wire. A preliminary Israeli police probe has found that Israeli border policemen used live ammunition to disperse the group and that one of the bullets likely killed 10 year old Ahmed Moussa. During the demonstration 15 others were injured by rubber coated steel bulets.

The funeral of Ahmed Moussa was marred by a distinct up-swing in violence. The permanent stationing of a Border Police force, ordered by OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni, on the outskirts of the village where the daily demonstrations are held, infuriated marchers in the funeral procession.Yousef Ahmed Younis Amera, (18), was declared brain dead in a Ramallah hospital on Wednesday 30 July 2008 after being shot in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet and finally died on Monday 4 August 2008.

On the 5 August 2008 Israeli police said that they had detained a border policeman and placed him under house arrest in connection with the death of 10 year old Ahmed Moussa.In the second week of August 2008 Twenty two unarmed civilians (including eight children) were shot with metal-coated rubber bullets at protests in Ni'lin and Bil'in villages (Ramallah). Israeli forces in the occupied territories have begun using a new method of crowd control in Ni'lin. A mix of weak sewage water with animal manure and chemicals has been nicknamed "skunk", due to its powerful smell, the mix induces vomiting when sprayed on demonstrators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni'lin

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