Painted peace activists entangle illegal separation fence in Al Numan near Bethlehem

Saturday May 05, 2007 15:50 by Polly Bangoriad - MEMC News

The 'Stop the Bleeding of Bethlehem' campaign gathers momentum with today's action

As part of the “Stop the bleeding of Bethlehem Campaign”, dozens of peaceful protestors marched from both sides of the illegal annexation wall between the southern West Bank villages of Al Khass and Al Numan on Saturday at noon. They met at the razor wire-topped fence to hold a non-violent demonstration against the illegal Israeli barrier from both sides.

Peaceful demonstrators gather on both sides of the illegal seperation fence- Photo by Polly Bangoriad

As part of the “Stop the bleeding of Bethlehem Campaign”, dozens of peaceful protestors marched from both sides of the illegal annexation wall between the southern West Bank villages of Al Khass and Al Numan on Saturday at noon. They met at the razor wire-topped fence to hold a non-violent demonstration against the illegal Israeli barrier from both sides.

At around 11am 50 or so Palestinian, Israeli and International activists marched from both Al Khass and Al Numan to meet each other at the fence part of the illegal wall which keeps both villages imprisoned.

In 1967, the Israeli government annexed the land of Al-Numan village to Jerusalem but the population were not granted Jerusalem residency. Therefore, the people of Al Numan are effectively imprisoned in their homes, which are now deemed 'illegal' by the Israeli state since the illegal separation barrier enclosed the village in the Jerusalem municipality-controlled area. The villagers hold Bethlehem identification cards issued by Palestinian Authority.  

Therefore, no Palestinian is allowed to enter the village if their Identification card does not mention Al-Numan as their permanent address.  This deprives many of Al-Numan villagers who currently live outside the village to enter their village and visit their relatives.  It also prohibits the inhabitants of the village, but it is not written in their identification cards to leave the village, fearing that they will not be able to re-enter their village.

To demonstrate the imprisonment and segregation of the two villages the Palestinian, international and Israeli activists gathered either side of the 3-meter high fence and started hurling brightly colored balls of wool and reels of ribbon over to each other. This created a huge web of color over the razor-wire fence, anchored from both sides by the two segregated groups.

The Israeli troops instantly started throwing sound and tear gas bombs at the peaceful demonstrators. One female Irish activist who was in charge of painting Palestinian flags on the faces of the demonstrators suffered a minor wound to the leg when she was hit by a sound bomb in addition to another Palestinian demonstrator who suffered a minor injury in his side when he was directly hit with a sound bomb.

After almost an hour the peaceful demonstrators started making their way back to the villages, leaving banners and signs bearing anti-wall and anti-violence slogans attached to the barbed and razor wire.  Having untangled themselves from the streams of ribbon and wool, the Israeli soldiers started attempting to remove all the banners and signs from the illegal fence.

A court hearing will be held in Jerusalem Crown court on May 13th with the aim of changing the route of the wall, or at least granting Al Numan's residents identity cards.

bethlehem | non-violent action | news report pollyanna.delany at gmail dot com