Download PDFLast week, the West Bank village of Burqa, located near the Israeli settlement of Homesh, saw several days of clashes. Nablus Municipality reports that on Thursday afternoon hundreds of Israeli settlers claiming the illegal Homesh outpost near Burqa attacked the village, dozens of them trying to enter individual houses. The attack took place as thousands of Israelis gathered the same day near Homesh to commemorate the death of Yehuda Dimentman, a settler killed in an attack on a car, and to demand the legalization of this settlement, angering the Palestinians.
Faced with the legitimate revolt of the Palestinian population, the Israeli army violently repressed. On the night of Thursday to Friday, December 24, the Israeli army indeed attacked the village of Burqa, injuring 68 to 130 Palestinians. Faced with this new colonialist offensive by the Israeli army, a first front of resistance was organized following a call from a mosque in the village of Sebastia, in the northwest of the Nablus region. Several dozen Palestinians also arrived from Jenin and other surrounding towns to support the residents of Burqa and organize against the violence of the Israeli army. It was with makeshift shields in the face of the soldiers’ fire that the Palestinians led a counter-offensive to try to push back the Zionist army.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) told the Palestinian News and Information Agency WAFA that 42 Palestinians, including a journalist, were injured after being hit by flashballs, while 83 others suffered suffocation by inhalation of tear gas fired by the Israeli army. Two ambulances were also hit by Israeli soldiers with stun grenades and tear gas canisters.
The following night, riots and repression continued near Homesh with live ammunition injuring 7 Palestinian protesters while 35 others were injured by rubber bullets from IDF soldiers, as reported by The Times of Israel. A 17-year-old boy was seriously injured on this occasion, informed the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Faced with this violence by the Israeli army, a hashtag #SaveBurqa was launched on social networks, accumulating hundreds of messages of solidarity and denunciation of the colonial policy of the State of Israel.
This new wave of repression is part of a year of intense tension causing the death of several hundred Palestinians who have to face daily attacks and bombardments by the Zionist army. Tensions have increased tenfold in the area since the assassination of settler Yehuda Dimentman by two Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on his car on December 16, leading to an increase in attacks on Palestinian villages near the city of Nablus in the West Bank.
While today between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers live in at least 250 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the year will also have been marked by significant mobilisations after the offensive on Sheikh Jarrah. A movement that was the occasion for a unification from below of the Palestinians, bringing together inhabitants of the West Bank, Gazans, and – relatively unprecedented – the Palestinians of the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan as well as those of the territories occupied of 1948 and 1967. This dynamic brings immense hope for the future of the Palestinian struggle, with which solidarity must be the broadest.
This article was syndicated from Revolution Permanente (https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/) on 28 December 2021. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the author, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article (https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/Cisjordanie-L-armee-israelienne-reprime-a-balles-reelles-la-revolte-palestinienne-pres-de-Naplouse).
