People continue to confront military & bulldozers

People continue to confront military and bulldozers

1) People continue to confront military and bulldozers 2) The continued harassment of Kafr Ein_TAKE ACTION 3) Aid to Gaza petition _ TAKE ACTION

1) People continue to confront military and bulldozers By: Neal Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Biddu, RAMALLAH

SUMMARY: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - People's demonstration against the destruction of Palestinian land for the path of the Apartheid wall, from 8:30 - 4:30. A total of 14 reported injuries, most from rubber-coated steel bullets, 5 serious, (arm, shoulder, knee, neck and jaw). Many more injuries not reported or treated at Biddu Clinic, approximately another 20-25. Demonstrators were unsuccessful in their attempts to confront and stop the heavy machines from destroying the land for the wall's construction.

At 6AM this morning around 100 soldiers followed by a total of 9 back hoes, bulldozers, and rock drills made their way onto the mountain in lower Biddu. The community converged around 8am at the village council. At 8:30 about 250 Palestinians joined by 15 ISM and Israeli activists began to march towards the work site to confront the ongoing construction of the Wall. As we neared the site, the older men in the community along with the internationals and Israeli activists moved to the front of the march in order to be physically visible and present to the soldiers. As we peacefully walked along the road at the base of the mountain we were quickly engulfed by the tear gas fired from several soldier positions along the top half of the mountain. The crowd dispersed into the olive groves leaving a small number of demonstrators on the road heading towards the work site. Border police began to run down the mountain to stop the remaining demonstrators from reaching the site and it was decided to abandon the plan and to head to the olive groves to regroup. Soldiers continued to fire tear gas and concussion grenades at the peaceful crowd. Around 9:20 the first stones were thrown in the direction of the soldiers. Shortly after, a group of demonstrators including the Israeli and international activists, made a second attempt at marching along the road to reach the work site. Similar to the first attempt, people were once again heavily tear gassed resulting in temporary breathing difficulty for many of the internationals and Israelis. One international had to be carried towards fresh air as she could not breathe properly and there was more gas coming. As soldiers continued to provoke demonstrators through the use of violence, clashes broke out in several areas along the bottom of the mountain. 2 soldiers took up sniper positions in the bottom floor of a house; shooting into the olive groves through a window. 100 demonstrators reconverged on the road at the bottom of the mountain to restrategize. Soon after, soldiers began shooting rubber bullets directly down the street at the mostly sitting crowd. Some bullets were fired directly into the ground, causing them to skip along the road's surface at a high speed. One of the Israeli activists was hit in the chest with a rubber bullet causing minor injuries. About 5 of the internationals were also hit in the leg and the stomach from the rubber-coated steel bullets, as well as another of the Israeli activists. At least 15 Palestinians were also hit with the bullets during this time. The crowd once again dispersed into 3 groups and the soldiers continued to engage them with violence no matter where they moved to. Clashes continued until 4:15 when the soldiers and heavy machines began their retreat from Biddu. Live ammo was fired during the soldiers departure at a small group of young boys throwing stones and several internationals who were not throwing stones.

JOIN US THURSDAY, APRIL 15 AT 11:30AM FOR A MASSIVE DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE CRIMES OF THE ISRAELI MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE LAND AND PEOPLE OF PALESTINE. NO TO LAND DESTRUCTION! NO TO GHETTOIZATION!! For more information, please contact: Neal - +972-66-346-165

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2) The continued military harassment of the village of Kafr Ein By: IWPS Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Kafr Ein, RAMALLAH

For more Information contact: International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) Office: 09-2516-644 Mobile: 067-870 198 or 055 854 988 IWPS@palnet.com www.womenspeacepalestine.org

REPORT: Army invades the village of Kafr Ein once again in the middle of the night.

Tonight at 10p.m. 1 army jeep and two humvees invaded Kafr Ein and threw a sound bomb. They stopped outside one house and two armed soldiers entered the house and 6 other soldiers stayed outside. IWPS had a presence inside and outside the house. After half an hour the soldiers came out and went away having told the father of the house, Nader Al Rifae that he and his two sons, Wisam Nader Al Rifae and Iyed Sayef Al Rifae that they must go to Beitunia at 3.30p.m. tomorrow. On the way out of the village stones were thrown at the jeeps and the soldiers opened fire with live ammunition. A few minutes later 4 or 5 jeeps returned to the village and then left again.

The whole village is in an uproar wondering what else will happen during the night. Last night they were all disturbed by the army, and today the army invaded thir lands, cutting down an ancient oak and destroying 40 graves.

Please call the DCL and ask why the army continually has incursions into this and neighbouring villages.

DCL Ramallah, 02 997 0611

Liaison Officer Lt. Adam Avidan 02 997 0112

DCL Commander 02 997 0284

The International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) witnesses, documents and publicizes human rights abuses and peacefully intervenes to prevent them. We support non-violent resistance to the illegal and brutal Military Occupation of Palestinian lands. We live in Hares, Salfit.

3) Aid to Gaza Petition

Friends,

Though we don't usually circulate petitions, please consider signing the one below, if you have not already. While Israel talks about evacuating Gaza, they continue to isolate, invade, starve and kill.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Aid2Gaza/petition.html

UNRWA suspends emergency food aid in Gaza

Gaza - The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) today stopped distributing emergency food aid to some 600,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip, or approximately half of the refugees receiving UNRWA food aid in the occupied Palestinian territory, following restrictions introduced by Israeli authorities at the sole commercial crossing through which the Agency is able to bring in humanitarian assistance. Stocks of rice, flour, cooking oil and other essential foodstuffs that UNRWA provides to refugees reduced to poverty, or otherwise affected by a humanitarian crisis now in its 42nd month, have been fully depleted.

Efforts to persuade the Israeli authorities to lift the restriction on the transport of UNRWA¹s empty food containers out of Gaza have so far failed, forcing the Agency to suspend the delivery into Gaza of 11,000 tons of food from Ashdod Port to avoid a bottleneck which would result in prohibitive costs. Under normal circumstances, UNRWA delivers some 250 tons of food aid per day in Gaza alone as part of a wider programme of emergency assistance to refugees, initiated shortly after the outbreak of strife in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000. Since then, the Gaza Strip has been locked into a deep socio-economic crisis resulting from the prolonged closure of its border with Israel, the destruction of thousands of homes as well as of agricultural and local industrial assets. Almost two out of three households in Gaza live below the poverty line, and more than half its workforce is unemployed.

UNRWA is not alone in facing chronic obstacles to the flow of humanitarian assistance. These have been experienced by all UN agencies operating in the West Bank and Gaza, whose Agency heads in a joint statement on 26 March called, without success, on the Government of Israel to loosen the restrictions currently in force in Gaza.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen said: "The suspension of UNRWA¹s emergency food aid in the Gaza Strip will further distress communities already struggling to cope with unrelieved economic hardship and malnutrition. If the new restrictions in Gaza continue, I fear we could see real hunger emerge for the first time in two generations. Israel¹s legitimate, and serious, security concerns will not be served by hindering the emergency relief work of the United Nations. I appeal to the authorities to lift these restrictions and enable us to resume our food distributions in Gaza."

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