Israeli Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett, Saturday evening, gave the Israeli army instructions that restrict the activities of peace activists who participate in the weekly protests against the apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank.
Hebrew channel 12 reported that the decision is made in cooperation with Israeli army and police. It noted that the decision was taken against left-wing activists, claiming that they make chaos.
The Israeli army accused the activists of provoking members of Israeli army in the areas where protests took place, against West Bank settlements, such as Bil’in, Ni’lin and Kufr Qaddoum.
Bennett said: “No one has the right to harm our soldiers, it is time to stop these provocations and crack down on them.”
Dozens of local and international peace activists have participated weekly in demonstrations against the apartheid wall, in the occupied West Bank, for many years.
Israeli occupation authorities started to build a wall between the occupied West Bank and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1948, during the era of Ariel Sharon in 2002, under the pretext of preventing attacks against Israel. Palestinians and many internationals simply refer to it as “The Apartheid Wall.”
According to estimates, the area of the isolated and besieged Palestinian lands between the wall and the 1948 borders amounted to about 680 square kilometers in 2012; in other words, it expropriates 12 % of the area of the West Bank.
Al Ray further reports that, in 2004, the International Court of Justice of the United Nations adopted an advisory decision to condemn and criminalize the annexation and expansion wall, and the court’s decision considered the Israeli settlements in all its forms illegal, and contradicts the international law and legitimacy.
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