Today some ISMers and myself went to Kafr Kaddum. It is a
village that I had been to many times, and on every Friday and Saturday the
demonstrations go on as scheduled. The people are fighting to regain access to
a road that was stolen from them by the Israeli Army in 2003, to allay the
security concerns of the settlers who are on their land illegally. The villagers
had been demonstrating since 2011. More information on the situation in the
village can be found in my blog entry from last month, that I wrote after an
interview with Murad: http://workingforjustice123.blogspot.com/2016/07/kafr-kaddum-background.html
The Israeli Army and Border Police came into the village
early, and clashes with Palestinian kids and youth began even before the
demonstration started. Once again, teenagers and young men ran towards fully
armed soldiers with slingshots, and faced rubber coated steel bullets.
The people, like during other times, tried marching on their
road. Several fully armed Border Police were waiting, and made it very clear
they would not allow them to do this. Clashes quickly broke out.
Palestinian kids and youth and young men throwing rocks, or
using slingshots to cover a further distance. Israeli Army and Border Police
officers using rubber coated steel bullets and teargas. The teargas cannisters
traveled at very high velocity, making whistling noises as they flew through
the air. The same noise was made by the rubber coated steel bullets.
Rubber tires were set on fire by the villagers, to obstruct
the view of the military and to irritate the settlers by wafting some of the
smoke into the confiscated territories. A bulldozer arrived and put the fire
out, in the process being pelted with rocks.
The clashes lasted several hours. Miraculously, no one was
killed or hurt, this time.
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