West Bank’s weekly marches denounce U.S. support for the occupation

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces suppressed, on Friday, three peaceful marches launched in different parts of the occupied West Bank, against the apartheid wall and settlements. Palestinian sources said that Israeli soldiers have fired rubber-coated metal bullets, stun grenades and gas at the participants in the weekly anti-settlement and wall march of Nabi Saleh. They also sprayed wastewater mixed with chemical substances on protestors in an attempt to disperse them, which resulted in injuring some of them. The sources added that the occupation army had imposed a tight security siege around the village of Nabi Saleh to the northwest of Ramallah city,  in the central West Bank, arrested 11 solidarity activists, including a press photographer while they were trying to enter the village to participate in the march, and transferred them to an unknown destination. The demonstrators chanted slogans condemning the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the international silence regarding the Palestinian cause. They also denounced the American continued support for Israeli occupation, and the position of American Democratic Party which considered Jerusalem as capital of Israel. Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians and international solidarity activists suffered from suffocation, in the village of Bil'in, following the occupation forces' suppression of the village's weekly march, as the soldiers fired rubber-coated metal bullets, stun grenades and tear gas at demonstrators upon their arrival at "Abu Laymoon" Nature Reserve located near the separation wall in Ramallah. The march of Bil'in, called for by the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements this week, was launched in solidarity with the Arab Knesset member, Mohammed Baraka. Baraka has been prosecuted for attacking a Zionist soldier during the suppression of a peaceful demonstration in the town of Bil'in in April 2005, and for confronting an extremist settler who tried to abuse demonstrators in a march against the war on Lebanon in July 2006. Israeli military forces also attacked yesterday, in Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank, dozens of El Maasara village's residents and foreign solidarity activists during their participation in the weekly march and while they were trying to enter their lands, confiscated by the occupation to establish the Apartheid Wall on them. The occupation troops closed the town of Kafr Kadoum east of Qalqilya and banned press photographers and international solidarity activists from entering it. Eyewitnesses said that a military force declared the town a closed military zone and blocked its entrances with military barriers, pointing that the IOF took advantage of the absence of media coverage and international solidarity activists and suppressed the weekly anti-settlement march. IOF used tear gas, metal bullets and Wastewater to disperse the demonstrators, causing a number of citizens to suffocate due to gas inhalation.