On Saturday evening, Israeli soldiers violently attacked dozens of protestors demanding the army to open the al-Shuhada Street, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli soldiers and settlers violently attacked the nonviolent protestors.Al-Shuhada Street was closed by the Israeli army in 1994 after Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, opened fire at Muslim worshipers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city leading to dozens of casualties.
At first, Israel prevented Palestinian vehicles from using the street, but by the end of 2000 the army started preventing the Palestinians from even walking there.
Dozens of Palestinians, Israeli and international peace activists participated in the protest, chanted slogans against the illegal Israeli measures, and carrying signs written in Arabic, English and Hebrew demanding the army to open al-Shuahada Street.
The protestors also demanded Israel to stop “stealing Palestinian waters” as Israeli is using natural wells to pump water to Jewish settlements in the Hebron area while the Palestinians are left without the needed amounts of water.
Several children carried empty plastic bottles and demanded to be allowed to fill them with drinking water.
Dozens of settlers went to the rooftops of a number of occupied homes and started cursing and insulting the protestors.
As the protestors tried to march through al-Shallala Street, soldiers and settlers violently attacked them, and prevented them from crossing.
Hisham Sharabaty, spokesperson of the Youth Collation Against Settlements, delivered a speech and saluted Huwaida Arraf, coordinator of the Free Gaza Movement, and Israeli activist, Ezra Nawy, who was released from an Israeli detention facility last week after spending a month in detention for acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Hebron.
Sharabaty added that the coalition organizes this protest on a weekly basis, as part of the struggle to open al-Shuahada street, and to enable the Palestinians regain their freedom of movement in their city.
It is worth mentioning that under Israeli military orders, more than 500 shops and stores in the center of Hebron have been closed since many years while thousands of stores in other parts of the city face the same fate due to Israeli illegal measures that is only meant to allow Jewish settlers an upper hand in the city.
