11 injuries, dozens of suffocation cases in Ni’lin and Bil’in anti-wall protests [ 23/05/2009 - 05:19 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The IOF troops attacked at noon Friday the weekly anti-wall protests organized by Palestinian citizens and foreign activists in the Ramallah villages of Ni’lin and Bil’in which led to the injury of about 11 protesters and caused dozens of suffocation cases among others. The IOF troops used batons, rubber-coated-steal bullets and tear gas against the peaceful protests. In the Bil’in weekly action, there was a participation of 16 delegates from Canada representing 14 civil society and political organizations. The IOF troops as usual invade earlier the two villages every Friday and take vantage points on roof tops of villagers’ homes in order to quell and prevent these protests from leaving the villages towards the location of the Israeli apartheid wall. In another development, Israeli press sources reported that hundreds of Palestinian Bedouin from Al-Tarabeen clan located in Negev area held a picket in front of the Omer settlement outpost built on Palestinian lands in the area. The Bedouins protested at Israel’s practices against them especially its intention to expel them from their lands in order to establish a new neighborhood near the Omer settlement. In the old city of Jerusalem, police-escorted Zionist settlers went on the rampage last night deliberately sabotaging Palestinian property. Palestinian local sources said that extremist Israeli settlers smashed dozens of storefront windows and lights on Al-Wad street and in the markets of Al-Silsila, Khan Al-Zeit, Al-Haser and Al-Khalil gate. These violent rallies were organized on the anniversary of Israel's Jerusalem day, a holiday that marks the1967 occupation of the eastern half of the Palestinian capital. On Jaffa street in west Jerusalem, a group of Zionist extremists attacked a Palestinian vehicle, destroying it, before its owner managed to flee the scene. Another two cars were damaged by stones thrown by Israeli mobs. In the same context of settlers’ attacks on Palestinian property, dozens of Israeli settlers from the illegal Yitzhar settlement, south of Nablus, set fire at dawn Friday to bales of harvested barley in a large field owned by a Nablus farmer Friday morning. According to witnesses, this was not the first time Israeli settlers from Yitzhar destroy Palestinian agricultural fields. Another group of Israeli settlers backed by IOF troops uprooted on Thursday olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers in the northern West Bank. Farmers reported that the troops and settlers came to their lands located near Salfit city then forced them away and uprooted trees. The IOF troops announced the area a closed military zone and told farmers they were not allowed back onto their lands.