This week during the demonstration against the occupation in Nabi Saleh, six civilians were wounded and dozens of men, women and children suffered from the high quantities of tear gas, rubber and plastic coated steel bullets and large quantities of skunk water that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) used against civilians.
Starting at 9:00 am IOF made Nabi Saleh into a closed military zone and denied Palestinians, internationals and journalists with government issued ID cards to enter the village.
During the demonstration, the IOF expelled the residents of a house and occupied it for the afternoon, using it as a barrack and point for shooting further tear gas (including long-range tear gas missiles) and bullets at unarmed civilians. More than half a dozen homes were damaged when skunk water and tear gas shot directly into the homes forcing women and children out onto the street. After the demonstration, several residents found that the windows of their cars had also been broken by steel bullets.
Young people in the village responded by throwing stones at the IOC and their bomb proof jeeps. No members of the IOC were injured.
Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestinian Territories — This week the Israeli Army and the Border Police invaded Nabi Saleh and violently tried to repress Palestinian and international civilians who demonstrate weekly against the confiscation of their land by the nearby settlement, Halamish. According to Palestinian sources from the village, twenty-three people were injured, five members of the village taken to the hospital and three of them stayed in the hospital over night. Two soldiers were also injured when they were hit by stones (4:28).
The Israeli Army invaded the village before the afternoon prayer and demonstration began. While international supporters were gathering in Bassam Tamimi’s house, one of the leader’s of the Popular Struggle, the Israeli Army started to surround the house. ”I was outside hanging laundrey when the soldiers started surrounding my house. I started shouting at them to go away when one of them came up to me and sprayed pepper spray right in my face,” said Nariman Tamimi.
Since the Israeli Army was surrounding the house and had occupied the main intersection, the international supporters and several leaders of the Popular Struggle could not reach the tree at the top of the village where the rest of the demonstrators were gathering. As they left the house, the Israeli Army — joined by the Border Police — started firing tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and plastic covered steel bullets directly at demontrators.
Once some of the demonstrators reached the road to the spring, Naji Tamimi sat down in the road to non-violently object to the Isreali Army. As you can see in this video, one of the soldiers thew tear gas directly at Naji (00:48). A few minutes later, after he attempts to speak with the soldiers and returns with a few supporters to sit peacefully in the road, a Border Police officer comes up and sprays him directly in the face with pepper spray (3:00).
Later in the demonstration, after demonstrators started throwing stones, a soldier was injured by a stone that hit his face (4:28). Like demonstrators, soldiers also were injured by tear gas inhilation (5:30) before they occupied a house (the same house that the occupied the week before) in order to shoot tear gas and bullets from a high point in the village (6:07).
This week the Tamimi Press continued to send out press releases and photographs from the demonstration. You can view the album that they published on facebook here.
