RAMALLAH, April 27 (JMCC) - Ten Palestinians were reportedly wounded in clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli military at the Palestinian village of
Walaja. Two of the injured were wounded seriously, witnesses said.
Ammar Abu al-Teen, protest coordinator in the village, said that hundreds of people from our village and internationals in solidarity faced Israeli bulldozers that are clearing the way for the
Wall on the village's lands.
He said that ten of the villagers were injured, two of them seriously, by tear gas and rubber-coated bullets fired by the Israeli military.
Youth Nabil Hajajla was injured and then detained, and his condition, as well as that of a young girl, is not yet known.
Abu Al-Teen says that the Wall, a series of barbed wire fencing, cement walls and patrol roads cutting through the
West Bank, will eat up 500 dunams of Walaja's land, and place another 2,000 dunams out of reach.
The total expanse to be lost is half of the village's land, and some homes will be separated from the rest of the occupied West Bank.
Bulldozers have been working this week to clear cultivated land of tens
of olive trees belonging to the villagers of Walaja, which adjoins the
settlement
of
Har
Gilo and the Palestinian town of
Beit
Jala.
Israel says it is building the Wall to provide security and prevent Palestinians from infiltrating from the West Bank into Israel. The length of the Wall is estimated to be 800 kilometers when completed.
Palestinians say it will swallow up 20 percent of land in the West Bank occupied by Israel in 1967, which they seek for a future Palestinian state.