Two injured at nonviolent anti wall protest near Bethlehem

Friday August 17, 2007 18:10 by Kate Orwell - IMEMC News

A demonstration took place on Friday in Al-Walaja village, near Bethlehem, against the ongoing Israeli occupation and the Annexation Wall which has hit the village particularly hard. Approximately 120 people – Palestinians, Israelis and internationals – came to show peaceful solidarity with the village, facing 6 army jeeps and around 30 Israeli soldiers. An Irish activist was mildly injured by soldiers, who in a show of excessive violence pinned him to the floor by his throat.

Local sources reported that one Irish peace activist and one Palestinian were injured as the army violently attacked the peaceful protesters. One Israeli peace activist was arrested by the troops.

The Irish peace activist was hit on his face and head and was seen bleeing on the scene before he was given the needed first aid. The injured Palestinian resident was injured in his face and chest.

Soldiers used batons against the peaceful protestors who chanted slogans against the Annexation Wall and against the uprooting of olive trees by the army in order to contruct the Wall. 

Al-Walaja nestles quietly on the side of a beautiful wooded valley, but since the 1980s has been overlooked by Har Gilo settlement, built upon their land and the land of the adjacent town of Beit Jala. Current Israeli plans will see the village entirely encircled by the Apartheid Wall within a few years, turning this tranquil spot into an open-air prison. Already the bulldozers are moving in on the village and beginning to fell the trees.

An interesting speech by a female resident of the village highlighted the role of the well-known Cremisan monastery and vineyard in the village's plight.

The monastery owns the land bordering Al-Walaja where the work on the wall has begun, yet, according to the local residents of al-Walaja, refuses to co-operate with the village's resistance and ignores all attempts at communication by them.

In a moving moment during the village Imam's speech on Al-Walaja's history, his English interpreter struggled to translate the torrent of grief and rage he poured forth. For a few moments she paused, then began to cry. "We survived 1948 and 1967", she said through her tears. "But what now? We have been left not a single centimeter of our land. Where will we go now?"

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