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18th  November 2005
Demonstration against the wall in Aboud 

Three Reports

Photographs from Operation Dove, International Solidarity Movement and Stop the Wall

Operation Dove Report

Israel – Occupied Palestinian Territories of West Bank 
NON-VIOLENT DEMONSTRATION AGAINST the WALL in ABOUD CHRISTIAN VILLAGE


Tear gas shot at head height, one man was burnt on the face.
No stones were thrown.
Muslim and Christian demonstrators prayed on the land with  Grand Mufti Shaikh Taysir al-Tamimi , and Archamandrite Attallah Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Church.


Aboud, Ramallah Area – This morning almost 300 people, Christians and Muslims from Aboud, with internationals and pacifist Israeli Jews, walked in peaceful demonstration from the Municipality of the village to the land of the village where the Separation Wall is under construction. 

 The Separation Wall is already built on the Green Line (border between Israel and West Bank occupied since 1967) 6 kilometres away from the village of Aboud, so that it is already impossible to go from the village to Israel. The Israeli government is building another Wall close to the village, around the two settlements of Bert Arye and Ofarim. The demonstrators were stopped by the Israelis soldiers 1 kilometre from the Construction site. 
 
They prayed there with Mufti Tamimi. 

,
Grand Mufti Shaikh Taysir al-Tamimi (Chief Justice of the Islamic Courts of Palestine)

Also present were Many Christian villagers, Orthodox and Catholic, with Abuna Attallah Representing the Greek Orthodox Church from Jerusalem.
 

Archamandrite Attallah Hanna official Spokesman of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem and the Holy Land



Christian Muslim Unity

After the prayer, the demonstrators went toward the construction site despite the numerous shots of tear gas (CS type, carcenogen) and flash bangs that forced a few demonstrators (many of them elders) to go back to the Village. There were no violent reactions from the people, because of a good job by the leaders.

 
After a half hour sit-in in front of a soldiers block, the demonstrators left spontaneously and returned to the village. 

 
One tear gas canister explodes by this youths face.


Some people were poisoned by tear gas and one man was burnt on the face by a Tear Gas canister fired at head height.
 
The Wall in construction near the village could be designed to, in future, annex the two settlements of Bet Arye and Ofarim to Israel. These settlements were built in the eighties on Aboud land and defined illegal by a Resolution of the UN Security Council.
 
In Aboud there is a big Christian community, Catholic and Orthodox, many of the members of which will lose the main part of their land with the construction of this Barrier for the settlements (Barrier 1 kilometre from the settlements in some parts).
 
Operation Dove – Non-violent Peace Corp in Aboud: 00972 599311344  or 00972 547382452 www.operazionecolomba.org   e-mail: npcod@gmx.net

StopTheWall.org Report
The Report can be viewed on their website at http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1039.shtml


Aboud resists Apartheid Wall and breaks down Occupation Blockades
Latest News, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, November 18th, 2005

Hundreds of Palestinians from the village of Aboud marched on Friday November 18th from the village council building to their threatened lands towards the west of the village. Protesters gathered at 10:00 am and set off from the centre of the villagers to the areas where Occupation bulldozers have begun construction of the Apartheid Wall.


As the villagers arrived, large numbers of Occupation Forces rushed to the area. Undeterred villagers held prayers on the lands and speeches followed by representatives such as Tayseer Tamimi and Petchop Hanna Attalla who made passionate calls denouncing the racist policies of Occupation including the Apartheid Wall. They also called the international community to take steps toward ending Occupation and end the Zionist attack over Palestinian lands including Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Demonstrators vowed their own steps against the Wall would continue, and after the speeches, marched towards the bulldozers engaged in the daily destruction of Aboud’s lands. Occupation Forces attacked the villagers, firing upon the crowd with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets. The determination of villagers saw an Occupation blockade dismantled in their resilience to the Occupation project. Several demonstrators were injured and rushed to Ramallah hospital.


Israeli Occupation Forces attacked the villagers by firing upon the crowd.


Aboud, in northwest Ramallah, faces the same destruction and ghettoization as experienced by other Palestinians where the Wall has already been built. The Wall will surround Aboud from three directions. In total 12Km of it will snake around the village, shutting villagers out from their lands. The village will lose 5830 dunums because of their isolation behind the Wall. These lands will join the 1450 dunums of land confiscated in the 1980s to expand the Ofraim and Beit Areh colonies. Meanwhile, villagers asserted they would escalate resistance as long as the Occupation continues with its project to ghettoize villagers and towns with the Apartheid Wall and settlement expansion.

International Solidarity Movement Report

Aboud village near Ramallah conducts it first protest against the Wall

International Middle East media centre report

Special Report by, Saed Bannoura-IMEMC - Friday, 18 November 2005, 2

Israeli soldiers fired gas bombs at dozens of residents who protested against the Separation Wall, in Aboud village, North West of Ramallah, in the West Bank, several residents suffocated after inhaling gas fired by the soldiers, who intercepted the peaceful protest carried for the first time in the village.
Hanna Khoury, member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Aboud told the IMEMC that soldiers fired at the residents in an attempt to bar them from reaching the construction site of the Wall to protest there.
 
Soldiers also attempted to arrest a number of residents. 
 
The protest started after the residents gathered in front of Aboud village council, and headed towards a construction site of the Wall which Israel started to construct on the villagers’ orchards.
 
“The protestors, Christians and Muslims living in the village marched after Friday noon prayers”, Khoury said, “soldiers did not want us to reach the construction site, and fired gas bombs; several residents suffocated after inhaling gas”.
 
One resident was injured after a gas bomb fired by the army hit him in his head; another resident was hit by soldiers who attacked the peaceful protest.
 
50 international and Israeli peace activists participated in the protest along with the residents of the village.
 
Palestinian Legislative Council member, Fares Qaddoura, Father Attalla Hanna, the official spokesperson of the Greek Orthodox Church, Chief Justice of the Sharia Courts, Sheikh Taisir Tamimi, also participated in the protest.
 
Soldiers placed barbed wires and sand-hills in the streets in order to obstruct the peaceful protest.
 
Sheikh Tamimi and Father Hanna said that the Palestinian People are determined to resist the Wall “which annexes the Palestinian orchards, and separates the people”.
 
This is the first protest in Aboud village against the separation wall; the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Aboud held a meeting on Friday evening to evaluate the event, and decided that the protest will become a weekly even, like the nearby village of Bil’in.
 
Hanna also told the IMEMC that churches in the villages sent messages to the Pope, and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, in addition to several international churches informing them about the Israeli plans to construct the Wall, grab more orchards from the villages which already lost huge areas for neighboring settlements.
 
Wall facts and effects on Aboud:
 
Israel plans to annex 1800 Dunams from the village to construct the Wall, which might in some areas take the form of a fence.
 
3500 Dunams planted with Olive trees will be isolated behind the Wall.
 
The area Israel intends to annex includes orchards, an ancient Church and archaeological sites located between Aboud and the nearby village of Shuqba.  
 
Israel plans to install two fences, separated by 60 meters, It issued several annexation orders to grab orchards which belong to the residents and surrounded it with a 12km fence.
 
The Wall in Aboud area is also meant to separate two Israeli settlements (Ophir Ben, and Beit Aries) and keep them behind the Wall after connecting them together, which will lead to further land grab.
 
Attorney Mousa Makhamra, councilor of the Land Defense Committee filed an appeal, against the construction of the Wall to an Israeli court, but the appeal was rejected; Makhamra intends to file another appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice.
 
Today, Friday, the Popular Committee Against the Wall was officially formed in Aboud, and held its first meetings.