Update from an Irish activist in Palestine

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Thursday August 19, 2004 20:24 by Donal

Yesterday the Freedom March (which is marching along the route of the illegal apartheid wall in the West Bank) reached the Qalandya checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Yesterday afternoon we joined a march through Ramallah in solidarity with the hunger-striking prisoners. After about an hour we left that march and walked to Qalandiya checkpoint accompanied by many local marchers, as well as other Palestinians we have met over the last few weeks.

This checkpoint severs Ramallah from Jerusalem, and has strangled Palestinian freedom of movement since its establishment by the military at the start of the second Intifada. Thousands of Palestinians are forced to line up daily and endure constant humiliations and injustices while waiting to show identification in hopes of passing.

As we approached the checkpoint a group of kids started throwing stones and the soldiers responded with teargas and sound bombs. We kept marching and, to our surprise, got through with a without showing any identification.

My affinity group returned to the Ramallah side of the checkpoint to accompany a group of Palestinian girls from Salfit who had stopped when the stone-throwing began. While we were doing this, three other affinity groups unfurled flags, painted anti-occupation slogans (as well as a few circled A's :) and threw paint bombs all over the checkpoint.

By this time the soldiers were using rubber bullets, plastic bullets and live rounds. The march returned through the checkpoint to attempt to de-escalate the situation. We formed a line in front of the soldiers to prevent them from shooting. As we moved slowly away from the checkpoint, towards the Palestinians, the soldiers attempted to bring two jeeps out. A few affinity groups sat down, blocking the jeeps until they backed up.

At the same time, about twelve soldiers broke through our lines, took up position behind concrete blocks, and started shooting again. We followed them and stood in front of their guns. They tried placing their guns between our torsos as we stood in a line with our arms linked, but we just moved back and stood in front of them again.

Eventually, the group who had been blocking the jeeps came to join us. By this time, the soldiers had given up on shooting and the situation had been successfully de-escalated. The young Palestinians who minutes beforehand had been hiding from gunfire now came up and joined us. For a few minutes they stood eye to eye with perplexed soldiers whose guns had been rendered useless in the face of overwhelming and undaunted popular resistance.

As we moved away from the checkpoint the situation had returned to normal (a relatively good thing as often the army will close a checkpoint to punish Palestinians) and spirits were very high. We had successfully gotten through the checkpoint, managed to fuck it up a bit, and prevented the soldiers from shooting people.