IDF kills 15-year-old boy for picking his family's grapes near The Wall

Palestine Prepares for July 9 as Protests Escalate:
Occupation Forces Assassinate Child in Beit Liqya

from http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/961.shtml

July 8th, 2005

A number of protests in villages and towns across Palestine have left scores injured. Meanwhile a 15 year old child – Mahyoub Assi. – was assassinated by Occupation Forces in Beit Liqya. From Masha to Imneizel, Palestinian resistance to the Occupation and Apartheid Wall is escalating ahead of the one year anniversary of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling for the Wall to be torn down.

Beit Liqya:
15 year old Mahyoub Assi from Beit Liqya was assassinated in cold blood by Occupation Forces on Friday the 8th of July. Mahyoub is the second martyr in his family and is the third child to be murdered by Occupation Forces in Beit Liqya during the last 3 months.

Mahyoub’s family owns a small plot of land close to where the Wall is currently under construction. During the afternoon, Mahyoub had gone to this land in order to pick grapes which are grown there. Occupation Forces shot him twice, one bullet in the chest and the other in his shoulder.

Occupation Forces pulled Mahyoub to their camp where he bled for two hours before an ambulance was allowed into the area. He was already dead before he reached Ramallah hospital. He is the second martyr in the family, his brother was shot in the same area two years previously. Since the construction of the Apartheid Wall in Beit Liqya, Occupation Forces have assassinated three children.

In May Jamal Jaber, 15 years old, and Uday Mofeed, 14 were shot dead in a similar attack. see http://www.stopthewall.org/latestnews/913.shtml

Last month Occupation Forces burnt 40 olive trees from the land of the Assi family, reflective of the continual violent and brutal attacks on Beit Liqya, a village of some 8,000 people. Much of the land here has been destroyed by the Occupation bulldozers implementing the construction of the Apartheid Wall. In total 2,350 dunums of the village’s most fertile farmland will be annexed upon its completion.

The Wall’s route over Beit Liqya’s land stretches for nine kilometers, cutting in from the west, and then south and then finally eastwards, encircling the village on three sides. The Wall’s path in this area will also destroy significant parts of the ruins of two historical Islamic sites at Khirbat Ganayem and Khirbat Bakr.

Other July 8 Wall-related actions around Palestine:

Masha:
300 Palestinians mobilized in the village of Masha on Friday 8th of July against Occupation Forces and the Apartheid Wall that has taken their lands. Protesters condemned the manner in which the international community continues to turn a blind eye to the Palestinian Occupation, and the UN’s failure to implement the ICJ decree that the Wall is illegal and must be torn down. In a poignant symbolic gesture of the UN’s inability to apply international law, protestors marched in a funeral procession, carrying a coffin draped with the flag of the United Nations. As the community marched with the coffin towards the Apartheid Wall, over 150 Occupation Forces moved in on the crowd, attempting to deter their procession with razor wire meshes sprawled across the main street of Masha. Demonstrators continued to march in the face of the oncoming Occupation Forces, calling out to the world at large that Palestinians will not be removed from their ancestral lands.

Occupation Forces retaliated with tear gas and sound bombs, beating the crowd back in a display of violence and brutality. Palestinians remained steadfast in their rejection of the Apartheid Wall which has isolated 5000 dunums of their lands in Masha, which have now begun to be uprooted for settler-expansion.Four Palestinians were beaten and detained after clashes in the village of Imneizel in South Hebron, on Wednesday the 6th of July. Marching to the confiscated area, demonstrators took back their lands and over-ran the Occupation Bulldozers for a second time in 10 days.

Imneizel:
Four Palestinians were beaten and detained after clashes in the village of Imneizel in South Hebron, on Wednesday the 6th of July. Marching to the confiscated area, demonstrators took back their lands and over-ran the Occupation Bulldozers for a second time in 10 days.

The village has been under continual closure since the beginning of the second Intifada. Imneizel, cut-off and isolated from the rest of South Hebron, will lose 3000 dunums of its for the Wall project.

Occupation Forces – who made Imneizel a “closed military zone” when the villagers arrived - attacked protestors including Azmi Shyokhi and Abu Hattim whose land is being stolen by the Apartheid Wall. The Wall will snake around the South of Imneizel and with the settler-only roads to the immediate East and West complete the ghettoization of the village. Villagers vowed that their resistance would continue.

Bil'in:
Around 500 protestors – from across the West Bank and the 1948 areas – filled the streets of Bil'in as the village continued its resistance to the Apartheid Wall, on Friday the 8th of July. While speakers rallied the march – the demonstration was led by a huge model of scales. With Israel represented on one side and the rest of the world on the other, the US was controlling the scale, the balance of which was tilted towards the racist, colonial regime. Demonstrators were stopped at the entrance to their confiscated lands by large numbers of Occupation Forces. A symbolic Friday prayer session was held on the land and a tense stand-off occurred between the villagers and the Occupation Forces. Clashes broke out with tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs met with stones and rocks. There were several injuries including four Palestinians hit by rubber bullets. The most serious of injuries was sustained by 20 year old Yunis Yosif Yasin who was taken to a Ramallah hospital after being hit in the lower abdominal area. Another villager was left unconscious from a rubber bullet sustained in the head.