freepalestine
11th September 2012, 00:55
Clashes, stone-throwing break out in West Bank price protests
Published yesterday (updated) 10/09/2012 22:31
http://maannews.net/images/345x230/188721_345x230.jpg
Palestinian security officers stand in front of protesters during clashes
at a demonstration against high living costs and the government in
Hebron, September 10, 2012. (Reuters/Darren Whiteside)
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Protests against rising living costs in the West Bank continued on Monday, with stone throwing and clashes breaking out in West Bank cities.
Several thousand people hurled stones at a police station in Hebron after earlier clashes targeted municipal offices and fire trucks, witnesses said. Riot police fired tear gas to try to chase away the crowds. Dozens of police officers and protesters were injured, a Ma'an correspondent said.
In Bethlehem, clashes broke out when striking taxi drivers refused to let traffic pass through Bab al-Zaqaq crossroads and another roundabout near Karkafeh street, with dozens of people throwing rocks at protesting trucks in a bid to get them to clear the streets.
Protesters marched from Duheishe refugee camp to President Mahmoud Abbas' headquarters in Bethlehem, denouncing the president, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, price rises and the Paris Protocol, an economic agreement with Israel.
Protest organizers created a human chain between security forces and demonstrators to prevent clashes.
Nearby in Beit Jala, protest leaders urged youth not to destroy or break property as demonstrators chanted calls for Fayyad to resign.
"We're tired of hearing about reform ... a council after another ... a minister after another ... and corruption hasn't gone away," one poster read.
In Ramallah, protesters burned tires and rubbish bins and blocked off several main streets. Other protesters burned electricity columns and tires in front of Bir Zeit town and al-Jalazun refugee camp.
Taxi drivers blocked the street in front of Fayyad's office in the West Bank administrative capital, while dozens of youths urged him to "leave, leave," echoing a slogan made popular in the Arab Spring.
"We'll do anything, throw rocks, to get rid of the Fayyad government. They call it sabotage, but we'll do whatever we need to get rid of him," said 17-year-old Yizan Ruaismi.
In Balata refugee camp east of Nablus, dozens of young men blocked traffic in Al-Quds Street with burning tires, forcing private cars onto bypass roads.
http://maannews.net/images/PhotoViewer/188696.jpg
Sign reading: "Now i just go to the market and click "Like" then go home."(MaanImages/stringer)
In Jenin, traffic was blocked, affecting commercial and economic trade in the city. Taxi union director in Jenin Abu al-Wafa told Ma'an that 700 cars and 120 buses had gone on strike.
Tulkarem and Jericho were also affected by protests and strike action, with hundreds of people demonstrating against fuel prices.
Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Nour Odeh told Ma'an that "the government is there to protect the people's right to protest, and also to protect their lives and property."
However, the PA "needs to make sure that those who violate the law are held accountable," she added.
A public transport strike paralyzed Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps across the West Bank on Monday, as popular action against rising living costs continued.
According to Nasser Younis, head of the West Bank union of public transport, more than 24,000 drivers are on strike.
http://maannews.net/images/PhotoViewer/188644.jpg
Jericho.(MaanImages/Stringer)
Demonstrations erupted across the West Bank over the past week, protesting the rising prices of basic commodities. The price of fuel was increased by five percent after key suppliers in Israel hiked their charges.
An onlooker in Bethlehem, Muhammad Riziq, said that seeing streets empty except for rocks and burning tires brought back memories of the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s.
http://maannews.net/images/PhotoViewer/188703.jpg
Jenin.(MaanImages/stringer)
Hebron Governor Kamel Hmeid told Palestine radio that "a lawless minority" were to blame for the clashes in the city, which has often been the scene of angry confrontations between Israeli settlers and Palestinian inhabitants.
Poor planning, tight Israeli controls and global economic worries have caused a marked slowdown in the Palestinian economy, with growth rates falling by half from the 9 percent increase in 2010.
The PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, has taken on increasing debt to plug its budget holes, but economists say the situation is unsustainable.
President Abbas initially welcomed the protests, equating them with the Arab Spring but pinning the blame firmly on Israel for the economic turbulence.
However, public anger has so far been directed solely at his own administration, led by Fayyad, rather than at Israel.
Underlining the problems facing the cash-strapped PA, Finance Minister Nabil Qassis said on Monday that civil servants earning over 2,000 shekels ($502) a month would only receive part of their August pay because of on-going financial woes.
The PA's budget problems, caused in part by a fall in aid donations, especially from Gulf states, has delayed salary payments for 153,000 civil servants several times already in 2012, with no solution in sight.
Reuters contributed to this report.
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=518944
----------------------
80 Injured In Clashes Between Residents, Security Forces In Hebron
Tuesday September 11, 2012 01:26 by IMEMC News
Palestinian medical sources in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank, reported Monday that eighty residents and members of the Palestinian security forces were reported when a number of residents attacked the City Council building in Doura, near Hebron, a Palestinian Police Stations and an ambulance that belongs to the Red Crescent.
http://www.imemc.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2012/460_0___10000000_0_0_0_0_0_hebron.jpg
Protests In Hebron - Team Palestina
Nasser Qabaja of the Red Crescent in Hebron said that nine ambulances transferred the wounded to a number of hospitals in Hebron, while dozens of residents received treatments by field medics. Most of the wounded suffocated after inhaling gas fired by Israeli soldiers against the protesters.
Qabaja added that “some trouble makers hurled stones at a Red Crescent ambulance shattering its windshield and wounded one volunteer medic”.
He said that the eighty wounded residents suffered different injuries that range between bruises, fractures and suffocation due to Gaza inhalation.
The clashes took place after several unknown persons hurled stones and empty bottles at the building of Hebron’s City Council, and at the Fire Department building, causing serious damages to a number of fire trucks and the windows of the City Council. They also hurled stones at a Palestinian Police station.
Furthermore, fifteen residents, members of the Youth Coalition Against High Prices, were injured after being attacked by the same persons who attacked the police and the city council buildings.
Earlier on Monday at dawn, several unknown persons torched tires and placed rocks closing the main junctions of Hebron, and also damaged several traffic signs. Several minor roads were also blockaded with rocks and burning tires, while several trash cans were set ablaze.
Issa Amro, an activist of the Youth Coalition, said that the coalition denounces all acts of violence, the attacks against private and public property, and the attempts that aim at transforming the peaceful protests against the sharp increase in living costs into acts of violence that serve the interests of suspicious persons who want to turn these legitimate nonviolent protests in acts of violence in order to distract the public and deviate these protests from their essence.
Amro added that “15 members of the coalition were injured while defending public and private property after being attacked by those suspicious persons”.
“Our protests are nonviolent, and aim at serving the interests of our people”, he said, “We call on all residents to be aware of all attempts that aim at sabotaging our real, legitimate movement”.
Clashes were also reported in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, while a number of security forces personnel fired rounds of live ammunition into the air in an attempt to disperse the protesters in the center of the city.
The Team Palestina Facebook group reported that 60 Palestinians were injured in Nablus during clashes with the police, and that Nablus mayor, Adli Ya’ish, was mildly injured while trying to intervene between the protesters and the police.
Youth activists protesting against the sharp increase of prices and corruption, the protests are nonviolent and peaceful, while several activists warned that some elements are trying to infiltrate their protests in an attempt to create tension and turn these protests in violent confrontations, and acts of destructing to private and public property.
http://www.imemc.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2012/460_0___10000000_0_0_0_0_0_nablus_clashes.jpg
Protests In Nablus - Team Palestina
http://www.imemc.org/article/64217
----------------------------------------
Palestinian Protesters close roads, burn tires to protest living conditions
Monday September 10, 2012 23:17 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News
In protests throughout the West Bank and Gaza over the weekend, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to protest the economic conditions and call for an annulment of the Paris Agreement, part of the 1993 Oslo Accords that allows Israel to control the Palestinian economy. The Palestinian Authority on Sunday formally requested a revision to the Paris Agreement.
http://www.imemc.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2012/460_0___10000000_0_0_0_0_0_greatmassdemonstrating. jpg
Saturday demonstration in Bethlehem (image by Maria Sevillano, AIC)
In Tulkarem Saturday, protesters burned tires and blocked the main road, and several streets in Ramallah were blocked by protesters. Hundreds of protesters in Bethlehem shouted angry slogans calling on Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to resign due to his perceived corruption and profiting off of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
On Sunday, taxi and truck drivers held an organized protest blockading a main highway from Bethlehem to Hebron to protest the high price of fuel, which has made their work near impossible.
Also Sunday, Salam Fayyad said that he would not be opposed to resigning his post “if that would lead to solving the problem.”
Some protesters tried to deface or burn Palestinian Authority buildings, which they perceive to be acting on the behest of Israeli authorities and not representing the Palestinian people's self interest. But they were stopped by fellow protesters, who called for no property destruction.
The protests have escalated since an unemployed Palestinian worker in Gaza self-immolated last Sunday to protest the poor economy.
According to the Alternative Information Center in Bethlehem, “Sunday demonstrators in Ramallah further demanded that representatives in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the recognized representative of the Palestinian people, take their roles and responsibilities seriously. This is a clear political demand arising from the economic situation.”
Many Palestinians have become fed up with the Palestinian Authority, which is a government under occupation and therefore subservient to the Israeli military authorities, who have final say on any action taken by the Palestinian Authority.
In addition, they are calling for an end of Israeli control over Palestinian imports and exports, international business relations, and customs and excise taxes. These taxes, which are imposed by Israeli authorities on all goods imported into the West Bank and Gaza, are then supposed to be distributed to the Palestinians through the Palestinian Authority. But many times over the last twenty years, the Israeli government has decided to withhold this tax money for political reasons, when it has disagreed with the way the Palestinian Authority has governed the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
More protests are planned for the coming week.
http://www.imemc.org/article/64216
----------------------------------------
Published yesterday (updated) 10/09/2012 22:31
http://maannews.net/images/345x230/188721_345x230.jpg
Palestinian security officers stand in front of protesters during clashes
at a demonstration against high living costs and the government in
Hebron, September 10, 2012. (Reuters/Darren Whiteside)
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Protests against rising living costs in the West Bank continued on Monday, with stone throwing and clashes breaking out in West Bank cities.
Several thousand people hurled stones at a police station in Hebron after earlier clashes targeted municipal offices and fire trucks, witnesses said. Riot police fired tear gas to try to chase away the crowds. Dozens of police officers and protesters were injured, a Ma'an correspondent said.
In Bethlehem, clashes broke out when striking taxi drivers refused to let traffic pass through Bab al-Zaqaq crossroads and another roundabout near Karkafeh street, with dozens of people throwing rocks at protesting trucks in a bid to get them to clear the streets.
Protesters marched from Duheishe refugee camp to President Mahmoud Abbas' headquarters in Bethlehem, denouncing the president, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, price rises and the Paris Protocol, an economic agreement with Israel.
Protest organizers created a human chain between security forces and demonstrators to prevent clashes.
Nearby in Beit Jala, protest leaders urged youth not to destroy or break property as demonstrators chanted calls for Fayyad to resign.
"We're tired of hearing about reform ... a council after another ... a minister after another ... and corruption hasn't gone away," one poster read.
In Ramallah, protesters burned tires and rubbish bins and blocked off several main streets. Other protesters burned electricity columns and tires in front of Bir Zeit town and al-Jalazun refugee camp.
Taxi drivers blocked the street in front of Fayyad's office in the West Bank administrative capital, while dozens of youths urged him to "leave, leave," echoing a slogan made popular in the Arab Spring.
"We'll do anything, throw rocks, to get rid of the Fayyad government. They call it sabotage, but we'll do whatever we need to get rid of him," said 17-year-old Yizan Ruaismi.
In Balata refugee camp east of Nablus, dozens of young men blocked traffic in Al-Quds Street with burning tires, forcing private cars onto bypass roads.
http://maannews.net/images/PhotoViewer/188696.jpg
Sign reading: "Now i just go to the market and click "Like" then go home."(MaanImages/stringer)
In Jenin, traffic was blocked, affecting commercial and economic trade in the city. Taxi union director in Jenin Abu al-Wafa told Ma'an that 700 cars and 120 buses had gone on strike.
Tulkarem and Jericho were also affected by protests and strike action, with hundreds of people demonstrating against fuel prices.
Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Nour Odeh told Ma'an that "the government is there to protect the people's right to protest, and also to protect their lives and property."
However, the PA "needs to make sure that those who violate the law are held accountable," she added.
A public transport strike paralyzed Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps across the West Bank on Monday, as popular action against rising living costs continued.
According to Nasser Younis, head of the West Bank union of public transport, more than 24,000 drivers are on strike.
http://maannews.net/images/PhotoViewer/188644.jpg
Jericho.(MaanImages/Stringer)
Demonstrations erupted across the West Bank over the past week, protesting the rising prices of basic commodities. The price of fuel was increased by five percent after key suppliers in Israel hiked their charges.
An onlooker in Bethlehem, Muhammad Riziq, said that seeing streets empty except for rocks and burning tires brought back memories of the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s.
http://maannews.net/images/PhotoViewer/188703.jpg
Jenin.(MaanImages/stringer)
Hebron Governor Kamel Hmeid told Palestine radio that "a lawless minority" were to blame for the clashes in the city, which has often been the scene of angry confrontations between Israeli settlers and Palestinian inhabitants.
Poor planning, tight Israeli controls and global economic worries have caused a marked slowdown in the Palestinian economy, with growth rates falling by half from the 9 percent increase in 2010.
The PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, has taken on increasing debt to plug its budget holes, but economists say the situation is unsustainable.
President Abbas initially welcomed the protests, equating them with the Arab Spring but pinning the blame firmly on Israel for the economic turbulence.
However, public anger has so far been directed solely at his own administration, led by Fayyad, rather than at Israel.
Underlining the problems facing the cash-strapped PA, Finance Minister Nabil Qassis said on Monday that civil servants earning over 2,000 shekels ($502) a month would only receive part of their August pay because of on-going financial woes.
The PA's budget problems, caused in part by a fall in aid donations, especially from Gulf states, has delayed salary payments for 153,000 civil servants several times already in 2012, with no solution in sight.
Reuters contributed to this report.
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=518944
----------------------
80 Injured In Clashes Between Residents, Security Forces In Hebron
Tuesday September 11, 2012 01:26 by IMEMC News
Palestinian medical sources in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank, reported Monday that eighty residents and members of the Palestinian security forces were reported when a number of residents attacked the City Council building in Doura, near Hebron, a Palestinian Police Stations and an ambulance that belongs to the Red Crescent.
http://www.imemc.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2012/460_0___10000000_0_0_0_0_0_hebron.jpg
Protests In Hebron - Team Palestina
Nasser Qabaja of the Red Crescent in Hebron said that nine ambulances transferred the wounded to a number of hospitals in Hebron, while dozens of residents received treatments by field medics. Most of the wounded suffocated after inhaling gas fired by Israeli soldiers against the protesters.
Qabaja added that “some trouble makers hurled stones at a Red Crescent ambulance shattering its windshield and wounded one volunteer medic”.
He said that the eighty wounded residents suffered different injuries that range between bruises, fractures and suffocation due to Gaza inhalation.
The clashes took place after several unknown persons hurled stones and empty bottles at the building of Hebron’s City Council, and at the Fire Department building, causing serious damages to a number of fire trucks and the windows of the City Council. They also hurled stones at a Palestinian Police station.
Furthermore, fifteen residents, members of the Youth Coalition Against High Prices, were injured after being attacked by the same persons who attacked the police and the city council buildings.
Earlier on Monday at dawn, several unknown persons torched tires and placed rocks closing the main junctions of Hebron, and also damaged several traffic signs. Several minor roads were also blockaded with rocks and burning tires, while several trash cans were set ablaze.
Issa Amro, an activist of the Youth Coalition, said that the coalition denounces all acts of violence, the attacks against private and public property, and the attempts that aim at transforming the peaceful protests against the sharp increase in living costs into acts of violence that serve the interests of suspicious persons who want to turn these legitimate nonviolent protests in acts of violence in order to distract the public and deviate these protests from their essence.
Amro added that “15 members of the coalition were injured while defending public and private property after being attacked by those suspicious persons”.
“Our protests are nonviolent, and aim at serving the interests of our people”, he said, “We call on all residents to be aware of all attempts that aim at sabotaging our real, legitimate movement”.
Clashes were also reported in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, while a number of security forces personnel fired rounds of live ammunition into the air in an attempt to disperse the protesters in the center of the city.
The Team Palestina Facebook group reported that 60 Palestinians were injured in Nablus during clashes with the police, and that Nablus mayor, Adli Ya’ish, was mildly injured while trying to intervene between the protesters and the police.
Youth activists protesting against the sharp increase of prices and corruption, the protests are nonviolent and peaceful, while several activists warned that some elements are trying to infiltrate their protests in an attempt to create tension and turn these protests in violent confrontations, and acts of destructing to private and public property.
http://www.imemc.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2012/460_0___10000000_0_0_0_0_0_nablus_clashes.jpg
Protests In Nablus - Team Palestina
http://www.imemc.org/article/64217
----------------------------------------
Palestinian Protesters close roads, burn tires to protest living conditions
Monday September 10, 2012 23:17 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News
In protests throughout the West Bank and Gaza over the weekend, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to protest the economic conditions and call for an annulment of the Paris Agreement, part of the 1993 Oslo Accords that allows Israel to control the Palestinian economy. The Palestinian Authority on Sunday formally requested a revision to the Paris Agreement.
http://www.imemc.org/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2012/460_0___10000000_0_0_0_0_0_greatmassdemonstrating. jpg
Saturday demonstration in Bethlehem (image by Maria Sevillano, AIC)
In Tulkarem Saturday, protesters burned tires and blocked the main road, and several streets in Ramallah were blocked by protesters. Hundreds of protesters in Bethlehem shouted angry slogans calling on Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to resign due to his perceived corruption and profiting off of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
On Sunday, taxi and truck drivers held an organized protest blockading a main highway from Bethlehem to Hebron to protest the high price of fuel, which has made their work near impossible.
Also Sunday, Salam Fayyad said that he would not be opposed to resigning his post “if that would lead to solving the problem.”
Some protesters tried to deface or burn Palestinian Authority buildings, which they perceive to be acting on the behest of Israeli authorities and not representing the Palestinian people's self interest. But they were stopped by fellow protesters, who called for no property destruction.
The protests have escalated since an unemployed Palestinian worker in Gaza self-immolated last Sunday to protest the poor economy.
According to the Alternative Information Center in Bethlehem, “Sunday demonstrators in Ramallah further demanded that representatives in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the recognized representative of the Palestinian people, take their roles and responsibilities seriously. This is a clear political demand arising from the economic situation.”
Many Palestinians have become fed up with the Palestinian Authority, which is a government under occupation and therefore subservient to the Israeli military authorities, who have final say on any action taken by the Palestinian Authority.
In addition, they are calling for an end of Israeli control over Palestinian imports and exports, international business relations, and customs and excise taxes. These taxes, which are imposed by Israeli authorities on all goods imported into the West Bank and Gaza, are then supposed to be distributed to the Palestinians through the Palestinian Authority. But many times over the last twenty years, the Israeli government has decided to withhold this tax money for political reasons, when it has disagreed with the way the Palestinian Authority has governed the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
More protests are planned for the coming week.
http://www.imemc.org/article/64216
----------------------------------------