From Informed Comment:
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Do You want more Gas?
First the Israeli government built a separation wall right through a Palestinian village, Bilin, on the West Bank inside the Palestine Authority (i.e. beyond the Israeli border).
Then young people assembled regularly to protest that their village was cut in two, with villagers on each side now unable easily to visit, and with the villagers having had land stolen from them without compensation.
On Friday, Israeli troops replied to the unarmed protesters by firing tear gas at them. But the tear gas canisters are intended to be shot from a fair distance. An Israeli soldier appears to have aimed a canister at close distance right at Basim Abu Rahmah, killing him on the spot. In mid-March Tristan Anderson of Oakland, California, was shot in the head with a canister and badly wounded while protesting the Apartheid Wall Israel has built; he is still in a coma.
Philip Weiss provides video demonstrating that that protesters were not violent. Basim was trying to reason with the Israeli soldiers just before he was killed. Weiss says that with the young man lying dead on the ground, one Israeli soldier asks a protester, "Do you want more gas?" (I have to say, I found the question chilling).
Aljazeera English also did a report:
Aljazeera English reports on the aftermath of the Gaza War, finding that "At least 83 children lost both parents and 2,200 lost at least one during Israel's recent war on Gaza."
Video:
-mr
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