Stop the Wall launches report to mark fifth anniversary of ICJ decision
09 July 2009
Stop the Wall Campaign, a War on Want partner organisation, is releasing a report documenting the crackdown on Palestinian resistance to the Separation Wall, which was declared illegal five years ago in a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
To mark the fifth anniversary of the ICJ decision, and to highlight the systematic violation of the rights of Palestinian communities opposing the construction of the Separation Wall, Stop the Wall Campaign is launching a new report, Repression Allowed, Resistance Denied - Israel's suppression of the popular movement against the Apartheid Wall.
It is five years since the ICJ ruled the continuing construction of the Wall in the West Bank to be illegal and called on it to be dismantled. However, the Wall continues to be built, cutting Palestinians off from their land and dividing villages into isolated enclaves. Protests by the communities affected by the Wall are met with tear gas and sometimes live ammunition by the Israeli forces, as witnessed by War on Want staff at a recent demonstration in Bi'lin, a village threatened by house demolitions and land confiscation because of the Wall.
Stop the Wall's report, co-authored with Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association, details the history of violence and repression against grassroots popular committees, which were mobilised by Stop the Wall Campaign to peacefully resist the house demolitions and land confiscations associated with the Wall's construction. The struggle against the Wall has become a priority for Palestinians, with popular committees -- local community groups formed to represent the interests of their threatened villages -- holding weekly protests in areas most affected by the Wall, and in some cases dismantling parts of the Wall and blocking bulldozers from entering their land.
Mobilisation against the Wall has grown over the years, with many youth involved as key organisers of peaceful demonstrations. At the same time, innocent civilians joining the protests have been fired at with tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. According to Stop the Wall, there have been 16 people killed, half of them under the age of 18, in villages protesting against the Wall since 2004. In June this year, Yousef Sadeq Dar Srour, a 35-year-old man with a wife and three children, was shot and killed in Ni'lin whilst trying to remove an injured 16-year-old boy from the front lines of one of the village's weekly protests. He was the fifth person to be killed during demonstrations in the village. Other villagers in the West Bank have also been killed during protests against the Israeli government's assault on Gaza in January 2009.
Despite these tragedies, the popular committees remain steadfast in opposing the Wall and the house demolitions and land confiscations that result from its construction. Jamal Juma, Coordinator of Stop the Wall Campaign, has emphasised the importance of international solidarity against the Wall: "We are calling on human rights defenders all over the world to find effective ways of supporting such resistance and to engage in boycotts, divestments and sanctions to pressure Israel to stop the Wall."
War on Want supports these courageous efforts and the vital campaign work of Stop the Wall to raise awareness of the continuing injustices faced by these Palestinian communities, five years after the Separation Wall was declared illegal.
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