Lie down and surrender: Nil'in under siege

The village of Nil’in, west of Ramallah, has been facing a struggle familiar to many West Bank villages that lie near the green line or illegal Israeli settlements. For the past few years, the Zionist occupation forces have been constructing the illegal separation wall on these villages’ lands. Like Bil’in, another village that has had the vast majority of its lands confiscated behind the wall and annexed to nearby illegal settlements, Nil’in’s residents have been conducting, along with Israeli and international supporters, weekly protests against the wall every Friday.

Bil’in pioneered these Friday protests. For the better part of three years now, protestors would gather near the lands that are to be confiscated and engage in nonviolent resistance. The weekly events, particularly at Bil’in, are well covered and documented by the local and regional media. The protests usually end with the Israeli soldiers firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the demonstrators, with Palestinians, Israeli and international sympathizers and members of the media facing the same fate. Bil’in has now hosted two international anti-racism conferences, and the demonstrators have managed to have a small part of the wall’s route changed. Their struggle continues.

This Friday, however, the spotlight fell on Nil’in. Israeli forces attacked the protestors with beatings and bullets, with over 130 injured over the last three days. The occupation forces placed the entire village of 5,000 under a strict curfew that has yet to be lifted three days on. The Israeli army spokeswoman justified this because apparently the protestors had thrown rocks at the heavily armed soldiers, injuring one. [Al Jazeera English]

I always like breaking these things down for you guys:

1) The Zionists confiscate thousands of dunums of village land deep inside the West Bank to loop the illegal apartheid wall around the illegal Israeli settlements which already sit on stolen Palestinian land.
2) The villagers protest this illegal land confiscation and ghettoization of their communities. The protests are mostly nonviolent, unless they throw a few rocks at the heavily armed occupying soldiers.
3) In a bid to stop the villagers from protesting the theft of their land, the army places the entire village under strict curfew.
4) Among the methods used by the army to enforce the curfew is the lobbing of tear gas inside closed homes, banning patients from leaving for treatment (the village clinic is running low on supplies) and threatening the villagers with live fire if they venture out in their own streets.

Activists with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) inside the village said the Israeli forces intensified their assault on Saturday afternoon. According to the human rights activists, the Israeli army "had ... invaded the village in force, bringing bulldozers to break through the barricades set up in the streets. During the following hours youths attempted to drive them out by throwing stones. The army responded with immense shooting. Tear gas was fired into houses, and at least one home was set on fire."

"When the army finally pulled back eleven people where left severely injured," ISM said, "one of them a young boy shot through the throat. His situation is as of now unknown." [MaanNews.net]

Ouch. Why would a state respond with such force to villagers defending their lands from confiscation for the benefit of illegal settlers? As Jamal Gomaa, the director of the Stop the Wall organization said:

"The people go to protect their land at every minute of the day, and it's something the Israelis don't want. They don't want this kind of resistance to spread to other villages."

The following is a report by Aljazeera International's David Chater, describing the conditions inside the besieged village.