When: 1:30 PM, Wednesday, 9 December, 2009

Where: Ni'iln, West of Ramallah

For more details: Jonathan Pollak: +972546327736

Echoing recent calls by PA and Fatah officials for "thousands of Palestinians to demonstrate daily" and to adopt the popular struggle model in resistance to Israeli occupation, the West Ramallah Fatah movement will join the people of Ni'ilin in marking the 22nd anniversary of the first Intifada.

The village of Ni'ilin, a symbol of returning to the strategies of the first Intifada, will mark the event in a protest march to the wall built on their lands, where people will attempt to unilaterally implement the ICJ decision calling for the dismantling of Israel's wall.

Recently, the Israeli military has increased it attempts to stop the weekly demonstrations in Ni'ilin, and have even illegally reintroduced the use of 0.22” caliber live ammunition for crowd dispersal. The 0.22” munitions, often colloquially referred to as “twotwo” were classified as live ammunition and banned as crowd-control measures in 2001, by the then JAG Menachem Finkelstein.

Despite this fact, the Israeli military resumed using the 0.22” munitions to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank in the wake of Operation Cast Lead. Since then at least two Palestinian demonstrators were killed by 0.22” fire: on 13 February 2009, Az a-Din al-Jamal, age 14, in Hebron, and on 5 June 2009, Aqel Srour, age 35 in Ni'lin. 27 more were injured in Ni'iln alone, with varied degrees of severity.

Following the death of Aqel Srour, JAG Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit reasserted that the use of the 0.22” munitions “are not classified by the IDF as means for dispersing demonstrations or public disturbances”, but on 13 November 2009, the army resumed using the 0.22” munitions against demonstrators in Ni'ilin, already injuring four demonstrators, in conditions very far removed from life-threatening situations (under which the shooting of live ammunition is permitted).