Palestinian residents, Israeli and international peace activists held their weekly non-violent protest in Bil’in village, west of the West Bank city of Ramallah, and protested against the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Some of the protesters were wearing orange clothes, resembling the clothes prisoners convicted to death wear before execution. The protesters also carried Palestinian flags.
Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in, informed the IMEMC that the clothes were to symbolize the Palestinian people subjected to executions and extermination by the Israeli forces in their attacks against the Gaza Strip.
At least 400 Palestinians and 60-70 Israeli and international peace activists participated in the protest, and chanted slogans against the annexation Wall Israel is constructing on Palestinian orchards and lands in the village and in numerous other places in the rest of the West Bank.
Israeli troops closed the area near the Wall in an attempt to bar the protesters from reaching there, and declared it a closed military zone.
As the protesters marched towards a construction site of the Wall, troops fired gas bombs and concussion grenades; a fire broke out in some fields when these bombs landed on the dry grass.
Resident Abeeb Abu Rahma, suffered an eye injury after a rubber-coated bullet fragment, hit him in his face.
Also, a French peace activist was injured after the soldiers violently attacked the protesters. Two Israeli peace activists were detained by the soldiers during the protest.
Two residents, identified as Amer Hisham and Ahmad Hasan were injured when the Israeli forces invaded their village, Bil’in, after the protest.
