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(AP) – Since the summer, dozens of Palestinian and Israeli activists have been picked up, including those organizing weekly protests against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier as well as others advocating international boycotts of Israeli goods.
Some of the Palestinians were released without charge only after weeks and months of questioning.
The arrests come at a time of shifting tactics in the protests against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and annexation of east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinians want for their future state. Israel captured both from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war.
The violence of the second Palestinian uprising, with mass marches and violent attacks, has given way to carefully calibrated protests and legal action in which Israeli and Palestinian activists now often work together.
Palestinians and international protesters try to escape from teargas shot by
Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Bil'in. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA
The main protest efforts are Friday demonstrations against the West Bank barrier in the Palestinian villages of Bilin and Na’alin and vigils in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah, where Palestinians have been evicted.
There appears to be an increased police crackdown on the protests with greater numbers of activists being arrested.
In east Jerusalem, police have arrested some 70 demonstrators during marches in recent months, according to Israeli rights groups. At Friday’s protest, police arrested 17 Israelis, including Hagai Elad, head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
They were released 36 hours later by a Jerusalem court, which found the gathering to be illegal, but the arrests unnecessary.
Elad said the arrests represent a “dramatic increase in attempts to silence dissent” that he believes began during last year’s offensive in Gaza, when Israel arrested hundreds of anti-war protesters, mostly Arab citizens of Israel.
It began calmly enough with a march down the high street after midday prayers at the mosque. Palestinian villagers were surrounded by dozens of foreigners singing and waving flags. They turned and headed out to the olive-tree fields and up towards the broad path of Israel’s West Bank barrier. There, behind a concrete hilltop bunker, the Israeli soldiers looked down on them.
The crowd approached the barrier, still singing. One man flew a paper kite shaped as a plane. “This land is a closed military zone,” an Israeli soldier shouted in flawless Arabic over a loudspeaker. “You are not allowed near the wall.” Then the soldiers fired a barrage of teargas.
It has been like this every Friday in the village of Bil’in for more than four years – the most persistent popular demonstration against Israel’s vast steel and concrete barrier. It is a protest founded on non-violence that is spreading to other West Bank villages. But it has become increasingly dangerous.
On April 17, on the hillside at Bil’in, a Palestinian named Basem Abu Rahmeh, 31, was shot with a high-velocity Israeli teargas canister that sliced a hole into his chest, caused massive internal bleeding and quickly killed him. Video footage shot by another demonstrator shows he was unarmed, many metres from the barrier and posing no threat to the soldiers.
The Israeli military said it faced a “violent and illegal riot” and is investigating. On Friday the demonstrators at Bil’in wore Rameh’s image on T-shirts and carried it on posters.
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