West Bank Popular Demonstrations in Solidarity with Gaza

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31/12/09
Demonstration in Bethlehem – Vigil for the Children of Gaza
Approximately 100 people gathered in the square next to the Nativity Church tonight in Bethlehem to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Gaza massacre which killed 1400 people and injured over 4500. Gaza Freedom March Steering Committee member Dr. Haidar Eid spoke via cell phone to the crowd about today’s events for the March in Gaza, and the Egyptian government’s unwillingness to let the march continue into Gaza. Children from Beit Zahour sang songs and danced for the children of Gaza holding large props representing the Palestinian “key of return”. Many Palestinian and International supporters attended the demonstration holding banners and candles. One banner read, “Light a Candle for the End of Violence and the Unity of Nation, and Lifting the Blockade” another read, “The siege of death must end.” Young children read the names of all the Gazan children murdered in last years massacre, while others climbed a tree and hung the names of those lost from the branches. People spoke out against the apartheid wall and against the illegal occupation of Palestine. The Al Maasara Popular Committee organized tonight’s demonstration.

According to Gaza Freedom March spokespeople, following Egypt's refusal to allow the Gaza Freedom Marchers to enter Gaza, the more than 1,300 peace-and-justice activists are setting out on foot. Despite police blockades set up throughout downtown Cairo in an attempt to pen the protesters in and prevent them from demonstrating in solidarity with Palestinians, the internationals are unfurling their banners and calling on supporters of peace around the world to join them to demand the end of the siege of Gaza. Egypt's offer to allow 100 of the 1400 marchers to enter Gaza was denounced as insufficient and deliberately divisive by the organizers. Some individuals managed to overcome the police barricades and began the march at the meeting point in Tahreer Square in downtown Cairo. They were joined by Egyptians who also wished to denounce the role of their government in sustaining the Gaza siege.

31/12/09
Tulkarm Gaza Solidarity Demonstration Stopped by Palestinian Authority Police
Around 11am today members of the Tulkarm Popular Committee, Khodori University students, and residents of Tulkarm and surrounding communities attempted to hold a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza. One jeep with approximately 6 Palestinian Authority police quickly arrived and stopped the demonstration. The message from the organizers being, “together we can break the siege.” The demonstration was also intended to speak out against Israel’s 11 chemical factories, which contaminate Tulkarm’s land and water. These factories were forbidden to operate in Israel because of the environmental and health problems that they caused the Israeli population. The Tulkarm Popular Committee says that they were stopped today, but this is only one of many demonstrations against the occupation.

31/12/09
Popular Demonstration in Ramallah
More than 250 Palestinians rallied in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on New Year's Eve Day in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March during an event organized by the Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank.

“We are calling on the people of Palestine to work together to end the occupation,” said Iyad Burnat, a community organizer with the Bil'in Committee for Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements. “Only by uniting the resistance can we succeed."
The Gaza Freedom March and the Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank are demanding an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza, a form of collective punishment which has essentially turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison for its 1.5 million inhabitants.

The New Year's Eve Day protests were scheduled to mark the 1-year anniversary of Israel's Operation: Cast Lead massacre in Gaza that killed more than 1,300 people and wounded more than 5,000.