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"Hunger and Anger" - 1500 protest in Hebron
Latest News, Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, May 11th, 2008

An estimated 1,500 people demonstrated yesterday in front of the government offices in Hebron. Men, women and children from villages and towns across the Hebron district turned out to participate.

Above: A large number of women were present at the demonstration; many were carrying empty pots to protest food shortages and high prices.

The protest, organized under the banner “Hunger and Anger”, was on one hand a demonstration to mark the 60 years of Nakba and dispossession faced by the Palestinian people. Violence, land theft and colonization is ongoing in the Hebron district, where settlements continue to expand and settler gangs regularly intimidate and attack shepherds and farmers. The residents of Hebron’s old city suffer under military restrictions and unchecked settler violence. In the south of the district, land continues to be confiscated for the construction of the Wall.

The demonstration was also an opportunity for the people of the Hebron district to send a message to the PNA. Of central concern to the people are the food shortages as well as the rising food prices across Palestine; basic staples such as lentils, vegetables and oil have gone up steeply while rice has doubled in cost. Demonstrators also called on the government to address the situation of local workers and farmers, demanding that the government guarantee a basic level of social and economic security.

Palestinians from all over the Hebron district arrived in Ibn Rushd square, where the march began. Many of the women carried their empty cooking pots and utensils to draw attention to the harsh conditions faced by their families’. From the square, people marched to the PNA government office. The people called on the district governor to come outside and address the social problems faced by the people of Hebron. The government, which has so far been unsuccessful in confronting this issue, failed to appear and confront the demands of the crowd.

The Hebron popular committees organized the demonstration in cooperation with the Palestinian Farmers’ Union.

Above: People from all over the Hebron district participated in the demonstration.

Above: A new generation faces the ongoing Nakba.