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Resistance to the Wall Continues for the Third Day in Zawiya
Latest News, PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, June 9th, 2004

The people in Zawiya village continued today to confront the Occupation bulldozers destroying their land for the Wall’s path. For the third day in a row the people in Zawiya village stood in front of the bulldozers, facing the Occupation machinery determined to resist the Apartheid Wall.

This morning at 10:30 a huge demonstration headed from the center of the village towards the threatened lands. Both women and men participated in the demonstration, and large numbers of Occupation forces blocked the exits from the village in an attempt to prevent the people from reaching their lands. The Occupation forces fired tear gas and sound grenades at the demonstrators, also using live and rubber bullets to try and stop the demonstrators. However, the people were determined to reach their lands and many of them managed to do so.

Above: Armed with only her body and a stone a Palestinian women faces an Occupation digger that is destroying her lands.

Women were the majority of those who reached the lands, and they stood in front of the Occupation bulldozers, fighting by hand with the Occupation soldiers who fired tear gas and hit the women with batons, beating a seventy year old man until he lost consciousness. Two young men were hit by live ammunition and many young people were arrested.

The people in Zawiya emphasize that they are determined to face the Occupation forces and resist the Apartheid Wall. Their strong resistance to the Occupation, despite the continuous, and oppressive measures Occupation Forces use against them, shows that the Palestinian people are still willing, and able to fight the Occupation. This resistance includes the struggle against the Occupation’s latest and largest crime against the Palestinians, the Apartheid Wall, which puts Palestinians in ghettos and confiscates what little they have left of their lands. The resistance in Zawiya over the last three days is a clear message to the Occupation, and indeed, to the whole world. In the days when the Occupation’s plan for disengagement is getting more and more support on an international level, Palestinians are still fighting against the Occupation. Moreover, this resistance says to the world that self determination is an inalienable right, and in the end, it will be the Palestinians alone who will decide their own fate.