Israel uses new, more-lethal tear gas canisters on Palestinians
Friday, March 20, 2009
By: Paul Greenberg
U.S. activist critically wounded in Ni'lin protest against apartheid wall
The Palestinian town of Ni’lin has become a focal point of protest and resistance against the expansionist Israeli apartheid wall. The wall cuts deep into the West Bank, separating more Palestinians from their land.
The Israeli military is now using the Sarukh, a new
and more lethal teargase canister, against
Palestinians and their supporters. |
Ni’lin has already lost most of its land to occupation. The wall would cut off another quarter of what is left, including the town’s olive groves, and isolate Ni’lin from the rest of the West Bank.
The residents of Ni’lin and their supporters have been protesting and trying to block the building of the wall through their land. The Israeli occupation forces have been attempting to brutally suppress the resistance.
Since last July, the Israeli forces have killed four residents of Ni’lin. Ahmed Mousa, 10 years old, was shot in the head with live ammunition on July 29, 2008. On July 30, Yousef Anira, 17, was shot with two rubber-coated steel bullets. On Dec. 28, Arafat Rateb Khawaje, 22, was shot in the back with live ammunition. The same day Mohammed Khawaje, 20, was shot in the head with live ammunition. He died on Dec. 31.
The Israeli military has started using a new kind of tear gas canister against protesters. It has a longer range, is heavier, has a high velocity and is classified as a 40mm bullet. Unlike the old tear gas canisters, which release tear gas in mid-air, this one releases the gas on impact. For all these reasons, victims cannot see or hear the canister before it hits.
The new tear gas canister looks like a big bullet, and really should be called a tear gas bullet. The use of such misnamed "non-lethal" weapons have disabled and killed countless Palestinians.
Last Friday, March 13, as a weekly protest in Ni’lin was winding down, Israeli forces fired at close range. They continued to fire as the clearly marked paramedics and ambulance arrived. Then they stopped the Palestinian ambulance for as long as 15 minutes in town and again, at the border.
Two protesters were seriously wounded. One was a Palestinian resident of Ni’lin, who was shot in the leg with live ammunition. The other, Tristan Anderson, was shot in the head with one of the new tear gas canister/bullets, and critically wounded.
Tristan was a long-time activist in the movement against imperialist war and oppression; a journalist; and a member of Sign Display Union Local 510, IUPAT, in the San Francisco-Oakland bay area. Tristan Anderson posted news reports and pictures on Indybay from Oaxaca, Iraq and Palestine. His report on the protests in Ni’lin the previous Friday, posted March 7, as well as updates on his medical condition can be found on the website.
Because he is a U.S. citizen, Tristan’s injury was deemed newsworthy by the capitalist news media at a time when news of Palestinian and Iraqi injuries and deaths has been virtually ignored.
For his family and those who knew him as a friend, a fellow activist and journalist, and a union brother, his story brought a taste, a small glimpse, into the terror, pain and grief that Palestinians experience every day.
News reached Tristan’s union sisters and brothers last Friday afternoon during work at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. Since then, the work-site sign-in area is posted with pictures of Tristan, news articles and leaflets for demonstrations against the U.S.-Israeli occupation and war. The news has brought to light the Palestinian people’s fierce struggle and the brutal reality of the U.S.-Israeli occupation for people who had not had access to the real facts before. In Local 510, Tristan’s union, the occupation of Palestine is now a subject of discussion among other workers.
Along with the Central Labor Councils of San Francisco and Alameda Counties, Local 510 supports the March 21 demonstrations against the Occupation of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Mon., March 16, Friends of Tristan and Palestine protested against the occupation of Palestine. Hundreds gathered in front of the Israeli Consulate and marched through downtown San Francisco.
The United States funds and supports the Israeli occupation of Palestine because Israel serves as a garrison state for the interests of the U.S. imperialist ruling class in the Middle East. What has happened in the town of Ni’lin is only one example of the daily brutalities for Palestinians living under U.S.-supported Israeli occupation—not only in the West Bank and Gaza but in all of historic Palestine.
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