Nonviolent anti-wall activities in Bethlehem villages after the prayer

Friday June 11, 2010 23:44 by Palestine News Network - PNN

Palestinian villagers near Bethlehem, southern West Bank, organized on Friday protests against the wall Israel is building on their lands.

Anti-wall protest in Wad Rahal (File Photo: Ron Taylor)

In the village of Wad Rahal international supporters joined the farmers after the midday prayers at the local mosque and marched to the lands taken over by Israel for the wall construction.

Israeli soldiers stopped the people from reaching the construction site. Organizers delivered speeches demanding the halt of settlement and wall construction in the West Bank. The mach this week ended without any clashes with the military.

At the same time another anti wall protest was organized at the nearby village of Al Maíssara. Israeli and international supporters marched with the villagers to their lands. Soldiers stopped the people near the settlers road number 60, which separate the villages from their lands.

Soldiers used barbed wire to block the road for the protesters. At the military road block local youth torched an Israeli flag.

Troops arrested Hassan Ibrigyah, a local organizer, after part of the burnt flag stuck into his shoes; when he tried to shake it off it hit a soldier foot causing the arrest; witnesses told PNN.

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