***image2***From the south to the north of the West Bank, popular committees against the Apartheid Wall staged demonstrations against their ghettoization and the latest Occupation attacks on Gaza. On Friday 31 June, demonstrations were joined by marches organized by the National and Islamic Forces. They united to condemn the Occupation policies and arrests of important figures of the political leadership and called for a Free Palestine.
The people from Masafir Yatta â the area isolated behind the settler road 80 south of Yatta – staged a protest against the settler attacks and the isolation of the area from the rest of the Hebron district. Occupation Forces closed the entrances of each village in the area to prevent people from participating.
After the Friday prayer, some 150 people managed to gather in the fields where Zionist settlers had burned some 10 tons of hay produce last week. From there they marched towards road 80. The Jewish-only road is to be fenced in to cut off the connection between the people in Masafir Yatta and the town of Yatta. The crowd chanted slogans denouncing the Wall, the settler infrastructure and the daily oppression of Israeli Apartheid.
The combination of Apartheid infrastructure, the presence of Occupation Forces and the Zionist settlers plays an integral role in ensuring life is made impossible for farmers and Bedouins in South Yatta.
In Bilâin around 400 people gathered after Friday prayers and marched from the village mosque to their land. Occupation Forces were already stationed to prevent the people reaching their fields. Closing the gates of the Apartheid Wall Soldiers told people to leave.
Declared a closed military zone Occupation forces then attacked people with tear gas, sound bombs and rubber coated bullets as Palestinians stayed firm on their lands. Soldiers hounded people in the narrow streets and between the houses of Bilâin placing the entire village under clouds of tear gas.
The brutality of the Occupation left several youth injured. Adib Abu Rahme was injured in his eye by the shrapnel of an exploded sound bomb, whilst Amro Hisham was hit by two rubber bullets, one on his back and one on his leg. Ahmad Muhammad Hassan was shot by a rubber bullet in his stomach. The sound bombs burnt fields belonging to Sulaiman Husain Yahsin.
In al Khader, tens marched from the village mosque to the southern part of the village where Occupation bulldozers have been uprooting trees for several weeks. A heavy military presence blocked the path of the protestors and barred them from reaching their lands. The protestors joined the national calls to end the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people, demanding the Wall to be torn down and Palestine and its people to be set free.
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In Tulkarem a mass protest saw a thousand people unite in a powerful march from the mosque to the city center. The crowd stood in protest against the atrocities which the people of Gaza are currently resisting, denounced the recent arrest of key figures of the national leadership and called in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Far from frustrating and breaking the Palestinian resistance, the struggle in the villages and towns continues day after day. It revealed that repression, killings and the imposition of an ever more brutal Occupation will only strengthen the united Palestine resistance who continue to struggle until they secure justice and liberation.
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