By The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Dozens of residents of Nabi Saleh, joined by supporters from Israel and abroad, marked a historic victory on Friday when they succeeded in reaching the village’s confiscated spring.
Residents and supporters of Nabi Saleh march on Friday toward the village's spring (photo: Tamimi Press)
Protests in the small hilltop village started in December 2009 as a response to the annexation of the freshwater spring and theft of other village lands by the adjacent settlement of Halamish. Since then, weekly protests have attempted to reach the spring but are always met with harsh military violence. In the past few months, two women’s marches were able to reach the spring in the middle of the week, but this week marked the first time in which the Friday demonstration arrived at the site.
Israeli soldiers, settlers and anti-occupation protesters at Nabi Saleh's spring (Tamimi Press)
Nabi Saleh is a small village of approximately 550 people, twenty kilometers northwest of Ramallah in the West Bank. Halamish (also known as Neveh Tzuf ) was established on lands belonging to the villages of Nabi Saleh and Deir Nidham in 1976.
Palestinians reach Nabi Saleh's spring during Friday's demonstration (photo: Elyakim Nitzany)
In December 2009, the village began weekly non-violent demonstrations against Halamish’s annexation of the fresh water springs and other village lands. Since the start of the demonstrations, the Israeli military has sought to repress the protests, arresting more than 13 percent of the village, including children. In total, as of March 31, 2011, 64 village residents have been arrested. All but three were tried for participating in the non-violent demonstrations. Of those imprisoned, 29 are minors under the age of 18 years and four are women.
Related:
Palestinian women take back spring as settlers, soldiers look on
PHOTOS: Peaceful actions lay claim to Palestinian lands
WATCH: IDF officer stones, shoots at Palestinian protesters
Nabi Saleh: A tiny village’s struggle against the occupation
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Kolumn9
I suppose it is time to build a fence to prevent future infiltration onto the lands of Neve Tzuf.
AYLA
wow, I love these photos! Mabrouk, everyone!
*
It’s amazing, really, that after all these thousands of years, we’re still fighting over springs…
Greg Pollock
The middle photo is nicely bizarre. You did it. How? By taking yourselves, and a greater us, larger than the Bank itself, to a new place. Don’t lose it. Pass it on.
Handala
Peace and Justice will always prevail…no matter how long it takes, no matter how strong their opposition is!
Kolumn9
Handala is right. Peace and justice will always prevail, no matter how long it takes or how strong Arab or Islamic opposition is.
Normalizing violence-- a report from Nabi Saleh
[...] cover story on Saturday featured pleasant photos of children playing in a spring under the triumphant headline: “For first time, weekly protest in Nabi Saleh [...]
Matt
Brandon Davis has a response to this article on Mondoweiss.net, entitled “Normalizing violence– a report from Nabi Saleh”:
“972’s cover story on Saturday featured pleasant photos of children playing in a spring under the triumphant headline: “For first time, weekly protest in Nabi Saleh reaches destination: its own spring.” The story is brief, just four short paragraphs that give some facts about past arrests during the three years of weekly protests in the town – though oddly no mention of Mustafa Tamimi, who was killed by a tear gas canister last December.”
See the full article at http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/normalizing-violence-a-report-from-nabi-saleh.html
The article goes on to describe the violence encountered by the protesters after they had reached the spring. Would like to hear the reasons for not speaking of the violence in this blog post.