ONE NIL'IN

Israeli forces murdered another peaceful protester against the Apartheid Wall (See SchNEWS 544) in occupied Palestine last Friday (5th). Yousef Tzadik ‘Akil’ Srour became the fifth resident of Nil’in village to be killed in a year of weekly demos against the Wall cutting through their West Bank village, which stands to lose another 600 acres of its agricultural land when the Wall is completed. 

Akil, who was prominent in the weekly anti-Wall demos, was shot in the chest with live ammo. According to a local eye-witness, “the soldier was to our right and Akil was running to the left to help an injured man… when he was shot in the heart.”

Meanwhile, over in Gaza on the same day, a farmer was shot in his lower spine by the Israeli army as he was leaving his fields. Khaled Ismail Mohammed Jahjuh had been harvesting the fruit from what was left of his orange and olive trees near Rafah, when he was shot in his jeep on his way home. He’s the 18th person to be shot working in their fields in Gaza since the end of the massacre in mid-January.

* See www.awalls.org www.palsolidarity.org

Indigenous Palestinian farmers from the Jordan Valley at risk of losing what little remains of their land to illegal Israeli colonial settlements will be touring Brighton and London from June 12th-19th. Last week two villages were demolished in the Valley with hundreds more locals due to be made homeless soon. The ghettoisation of the West Bank continues relentlessly despite Obama’s recent much hailed lip service to peace and justice for the Middle East.

* For more on the campaign to stay on their land visit www.brightonpalestine.org