The people of Al-Walaja are insisting that they will continue their resistance to the Apartheid Wall, which is currently under construction on their lands. They will demonstrate next Friday 7 September at twelve oâclock, despite the Occupationâs clampdown on their protest.
***image2***On 24 August Occupation forces cracked down on Al-Walaja, closing the entrance to the village and preventing the Palestinians from outside from attending the weekly demonstration against the uprooting of the forest for the construction of the Apartheid Wall.
The village council said that more than 30 jeeps around 300 soldiers attacked the village in the morning and erected a military tent at the entrance in order to bar access.
Despite the restrictions, dozens of people from Al-Walaja gathered on the land in Marah al-Khel, belonging to the Cremisan Monastery, where the Occupation is uprooting trees for the construction of the wall. The demonstration was organised by the local popular committee against the wall.
Demonstrators chanted prayed the juma Friday prayers, expressing their opposition to the wall, the ever expanding settlements and the uprooting of the ancient trees. The villagers then returned to the village where the demonstration continued with the draping of Palestinian flags and chants against the wall.
The Occupation are in the process of uprooting an ancient forest on the land of the Catholic Cremisan Monastery in order to build a new section of the Apartheid Wall. 1000 trees have been uprooted already, and a further 800 are slated for destruction.
The Wall will contain Al-Walaja in a walled-in ghetto, with the only exit an underground tunnel. This will allow the Zionist colonies to expand on Palestinian soil. There will be protests in Walaja every Friday on an ongoing basis, with villagers reaching out to people in Palestine and all over the world to stop the destruction of yet another piece of Palestinian land.
***image3***