Bil'in Weekly Demonstrations
This Fridays demonstration started out as usual; activist marched with flags, chanting “Free Palestine” with an ambulance, press from the UK, and curious foreigners following close behind. But this time the Israeli soldiers did not meet them at the door of the ever-resented wall but remained unresponsive for the first half hour.
Young boys threw rocks over the wall, other individuals started a fire that rose up against the steel doors. It felt like a stalemate. The group walked along the wall where, 50 meters away, there was a small foothill. Boys climbed up the side of the wall and planted Palestinian flags intertwined with the chain link fencing and barbed wire the lined the top.
Just as the demonstration was about to come to a close the group became surrounded by vessels of tear gas that were shot from a long distance.
Each group responded differently, as the foreigners fled, the teenage boys used slingshots to whip the teargas vessels back over the wall.
The weapons Israeli soldiers use during these demonstrations are unpredictable. This time it included sponge head rubber bullets that struck the head of the second oldest son of activist and international speaker, Iyad Burnat. His son, Abed Alkhlik, has been taking part in the demonstrations since he was very young. He suffered a concussion and was brought to the hospital by the ambulance and remains there accompanied by his father and friends from the village.