Press Release - Bil’in Sunday May2nd 2010

Iyad Burnat, a leader in the popular struggle against the Israeli
wall, was banned by Israel’s military from crossing the West Bank
borders into Jordan on Saturday. Burnat is head of the local committee
against the wall and settlement in the central West Bank village of
Bil’in. The villagers of Bil’in have been organizing weekly anti wall
protest since five years.

“This just another episode of Israel’s aggression on us, soldiers
detained me for three hours and then told me to go back, when I asked
them why they said for security reasons.” Burnat said.

Despite the non-violent nature of the protesters, the Israeli army
often respond with violence . Last year the army killed local activist
Bassem Abu Rahma after shooting him in the chest with a high velocity
tear gas bombs. In total the army killed 29 Palestinians during anti
wall protests in the West Bank.
Burnat was going to tour a number of E.U countries to give talks about
the Palestinian nonviolent popular struggle against the Annexation
Wall in the West Bank.

Bil’in villagers continued nonviolent protests against the Wall; and
the legal proceedings managed to get the Israeli Supreme Court of
Justice, to order a re-routing of the wall section built on Bil'in's
land. Due to the ruling, the villagers got back 275 of the 600 acres
Israeli was planning to use to build the wall.

Israeli troops stepped up attacks against community organizers
starting February of last year; since then the military detained five
popular committee organizers from Bil’in village during night
invasions. As many as 85 people were detained by the army for up to 10
months because of their work in the popular resistance.

Note
Two months ago the Israeli military authorities,in a further effort to suppress the nonviolent resistance, declared the area between the village and the Apartheid-Annexation Wall a closed military zone between 8am and 8pm on Fridays to internationals and Isralis - the day when Bil'in marches in protest to the nearby Wall. Iyad Burnat has declared: "We will not be silenced, we will continue to resist, we refuse to die in silence, we will continue to cry out for peace and justice to a world whose ears are deaf to the agony of Palestine."