WEST BANK: Palestinian demonstration against Israel's West Bank barrier turns violent

Record ID: 560807

  • Title: WEST BANK: Palestinian demonstration against Israel's West Bank barrier turns violent
  • Date: 18th July 2008
  • Summary: (MER-1) NILIN, WEST BANK (JULY 17, 2008) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PALESTINIAN DEMONSTRATORS MARCHING TOWARDS ISRAEL'S WEST BANK BARRIER DEMONSTRATORS SCATTERING AS TEAR GAS IS FIRED ISRAELI SOLDIERS STANDING BY MILITARY JEEP SOLDIER FIRING TEAR GAS CANISTERS VARIOUS OF DEMONSTRATORS ARGUING WITH SOLDIERS VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS CALLING ON DEMONSTRATORS TO STOP, BLOCKING WAY TO BARRIER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE PALESTINIAN FLAG TEAR GAS CANISTERS EXPLODING / TEAR GAS SPREADING THREE SOLDIERS STANDING ON HILL / SOLDIER FIRING TEAR GAS CANISTER BORDER POLICE JEEP DRIVING FIRE ON HILL, SMOKE BILLOWING SOLDIERS ON HILL VARIOUS OF FIRE SOLDIERS AND LINE OF ARMY JEEPS DEMONSTRATORS WALKING AWAY BULLDOZER WORKING AT BARRIER CONSTRUCTION SITE SOLDIER THROWING STUN GRENADE CAMERAMEN FILMING WIDE OF AREA NEAR BARRIER ROUTE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
  • Embargoed: 2nd August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA9UFSJF56GFZE3YDTPL9H3HSD6
  • Story Text: Palestinians demonstrate on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Nilin against the construction of the Israeli barrier which, when complete, will separate the village from much of its agricultural land.
    Clashes erupted between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters on Thursday (July 17) at a construction site of Israel's West Bank barrier in the village of Nilin.
    Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse several dozen Palestinian demonstrators who marched from the village towards a section of the designated route of the barrier.
    Nilin, a town of some 5,000 Palestinians located about 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Tel Aviv, has been a focus for protests against the walls and fences Israel is building through the West Bank, a project branded illegal by the World Court four years ago.
    Human rights groups say the barrier has effectively isolated some 60,500 Palestinians from the rest of the West Bank, and thousands more live in villages surrounded on at least three sides by the barricades, which restricts their ability to travel.
    Construction sites have been flashpoints for confrontations between Israeli security forces and local Palestinians, who are often supported by protesters from Israel and abroad.
    Palestinians say the barrier, which loops around Jewish settlements that dot the occupied territory, cutting off Palestinian villages from swathes of agricultural fields, is a land grab that could deny them a future contiguous and viable state.
    Israel says the network of razor-wire fences and concrete barricades helps keep out Palestinian suicide bombers, who killed nearly 300 Israelis in the three years between the start of an uprising in 2000 and the beginning of work on the project.
    The International Court of Justice in The Hague termed illegal Israel's construction of the 720-km (430-mile) barrier, concrete and fence, in the occupied West Bank.
    The United Nations says Israel has ignored that non-binding ruling, which found that the building of the barrier on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, was "contrary to international law," calling upon Israel "to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall" in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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