Al Walaja Jan 8 2012

Two of this week's demonstrations commemorated those killed by the Israeli Army in the course of the popular struggle. On Sunday - nine Israeli activists were arrested while stopping construction work of the wall in Walaje.

Anarchists Against the Wall join the villagers of Qadum for their weekly demonstrations.

Kufr Qadum

All over the West Bank, more and more villages devote their Friday to resistance against the tightening grip of Israel's millitary occupation.

A demo in Nabi-Saleh. Two weeks after the murder of Mustafa Tamimi. We assemble at various houses in the village, and set out on our march towards Ein-Haled, beyond the road. The wonderful youths of Halamish, the nearby settlement, have expropriated the spring, renaming it "Yair's Spring", building a tabernacle and beautifying the place, They are protected by an immense military force. The soldiers, armed from head to toe, are based in a barrack which has been adjoined to the settlement.

 
We are heading towards the spring, chanting slogans against the occupation and in memory of Mustafa Tamimi. We reach the top of the hill and start descending. A row of soldiers is spread in front of us, and even from a distance, they fire a large number of tear-gas canisters at us. The wind is blowing from west to east, drawing all the gas towards our path. We continue our descent, and the soldiers become confused. One of them shoots gas canisters directly at us, and we keep descending. The soldiers are instructed to run towards us. They obey, come up to us and manhandle us. They kneel us down on our knees and tie us up with plastic handcuffs.

This would be the 6th village that AATW will be supporting on a long term basis at weekly demonstrations.

(At 4:02, as the women sing, a male protester yells: "Who's afraid of women's song?")

The following is a testimony of one of the women, out of the 23 activists, who were arrested in this week's Nabi Saleh demonstration (above video). This demonstration was the first after Mustafa Tamimi's murder . It was extremely brutal, which is a relative term, considering the continuous repression that the demonstrations against the apartheid wall face, and the village of Nabi Saleh in particular. Out of the 23 activists, many were physically assaulted while handcuffed behind their backs, as Mohammed Khatib, one of the leaders of the Bil'in popular committee, describes in his own testimony. Mustafa Tamimi's sister, Ola, who was prevented from being with her brother as he took his last breaths, was pepper sprayed in the eyes, from a few centimeters away. And another handcuffed woman was slapped with the back of the hand of a passing male settler, when she expressed objection to him assaulting Khatib and taking pictures. These are just a few of the testimonies that were published and taped, we still don't have a complete story of this particular demonstration, and many other stories will be lost in the clouds of gas.

Testimony of Sahar M. Vardi