AL-RAM, West Bank, 14 December 2003 — Thousands of Palestinians and Israelis demonstrated in a Jerusalem suburb yesterday against construction of Israel’s controversial separation barrier. Some 2,000 Palestinians and nearly 1,000 Israelis protested in the Palestinian suburb of Al-Ram against Israel’s construction of the barrier in the neighborhood.
They erected a symbolic wall out of cardboard and then demolished it to show their opposition to the construction of this line that will divide and isolate Palestinian areas such as Al-Ram.
In Gaza City, meanwhile, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, connected to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, organized another demonstration against the barrier and also called for the release of Israel’s Palestinian prisoners.
“Do not let our state be turned into an immense prison torn by settlements and surrounded by the walls of racist separation,” the Brigades said in a statement distributed during the demonstration, which crisscrossed the streets before heading toward parliament.
Holding thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons “constitutes a denial of our lawful rights, and war crimes,” it said. Demonstrators waving banners supporting the right of return for refugees demanded “intensification of the resistance and of operations” against Israel.
“We reject all the plots against our people and leaders, and reiterate our support for president Arafat,” a Brigades spokesman said through a loud speaker.
The Al-Ram demonstrators displayed signs saying, “Jerusalem’s new wall must fall” and “Talks instead of building a wall.” Israeli police did not intervene, and the demonstration dispersed quietly.
The speakers, including Uri Avnery, a former member of parliament, and Arab-Israeli members of parliament, denounced the construction of the barrier in the West Bank, calling it a “crime against peace.”
Critics say it will cut them off from the city, which they depend on for business, work and vital social services, especially schools and doctors.
Israel says the barrier is vital to stop Palestinians infiltrating from the West Bank, while the Palestinians charge it is a pre-emptive seizure of land ahead of the eventual declaration of a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush warned Israel on Friday against taking actions that could hinder the creation of an independent Palestinian state, which he has called the key to Middle East peace. “Israel must be mindful ... that they don’t make decisions that make it hard to create a Palestinian state,” he told reporters at the White House. “It’s in Israel’s interest there be a Palestinian state.”
In another development, Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, told Jordan’s Al-Dustour newspaper yesterday that she has requested the dispatch of a Jordanian medical team to check up on her husband’s declining health.
Fadwa said her husband was suffering from back and throat aches and trouble breathing and has been refused access to a doctor by the Israeli prison authorities, who were only providing him with painkillers, Al-Dustour reported.
