Israeli Violence against Palestinians in Bil'in

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• published: 23 Feb 2013
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Find Britz4Gaza @ http://www.PalestineNews1.org Since January 2005, the village has been organizing weekly protests against the construction of Israel's illegal wall, which has taken 60% of village land away. The protests have attracted media attention and the participation of many international organizations as well as groups such as Gush Shalom, and the International Solidarity Movement. The protests take the form of marches from the village to the site of the wall with the aim of halting construction and dismantling already constructed portions. Israeli forces always intervene to prevent protesters from approaching the wall, and violence usually erupts in which both protesters have been very seriously injured and even killed. Some protesters have taken to wearing gas masks at the protests. The weekly protests, which last a couple of hours. Two Bil'in protests in the summer of 2005 are described in detail by Irish journalist David Lynch in his book, A Divided Paradise: An Irishman in the Holy Land. In August 2006, a demonstration against the 2006 Lebanon War was dispersed by the Israel Border Police using tear gas and rubber coated bullets. An Israeli lawyer, Limor Goldstein, was severely injured after being shot twice. Mairead Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work on the Northern Ireland dispute, was hit in the leg by a rubber-coated bullet and inhaled large quantities of teargas during a demonstration in April 2007. In June 2008, European Parliament vice-president Luisa Morgantini and Julio Toscano, an Italian judge, were injured in Bil'in. In April 2009, Bil'in resident Bassem Ibrahim Abu-Rahma was killed after being hit in the chest by a high-velocity tear gas canister. Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against the Wall, was arrested in December 2009 after organizing an exhibit of spent ammunition used against the protesters. He was charged with possession of Israeli arms, incitement and hurling stones at IDF soldiers. Desmond Tutu urged Israel to release him. He served a 15 month sentence in the Israeli prison of Ofer, and is characterised by Israeli academic and pacifist David Dean Shulman as an exponent of Gandhian principles of non-violence. On March 15, 2010, Israeli soldiers entered Bil'in to post notices declaring a closed military zone consisting of the areas between the barrier and the town. The order enforces the closure on Fridays between 0800 and 2000 during which the protests occur. While the closure does not apply to Palestinian residents of Bil'in, Israeli citizens and internationals are forbidden from entering the zone.[32] A film portraying the protests shot from the perspective of the people of Bil'in over many years starting in 2005 called 5 Broken Cameras, by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi became popular after being shown at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, winning the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. During a trial against Mohammed Barakeh in 2012, undercover soldiers from the IDF told the court about how they threw stones against other IDF soldiers during Bil'in demonstrations. On 31 December 2010 Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 36, died following a weekly protest.According to reports she was seriously injured in a tear gas attack during the demonstration. The exact cause of death is disputed. Other reports place her at home at the time of the incident, several hundred meters away.Taken to a hospital in Ramallah after she choked on the gas, she did not respond to treatment and died the following day. Members of the Israeli military (IDF) claimed there was no evidence Rahmah participated in the protest, or that tear gas had killed her, and stated that there were irregularities in the Palestinian Authority's medical report on Rahmah's death.[38] The IDF soldiers referenced in the stories remain unnamed.[39] Several Jewish Israelis in Tel Aviv who were protesting against the IDF's presumed involvement with the death were arrested by Israeli police on 1 January 2011 outside Israel's Defense Ministry.[40] According to a released medical report "there was no clear cause of death, the burial was undertaken via an accelerated procedure, and no post-mortem was performed. The information also reveals that Abu-Rahma was administered an unusual quantity of drugs, used to offer treatment against poisoning, drug overdose, or leukemia