Israeli soldiers fire on protesters

Israeli soldiers on July 8 wounded at least 10 Palestinians in a West Bank town as they attempted to stifle protests against a separation barrier, residents said. Soldiers fired live ammunition and used tear gas and stun grenades to try to quell violent protests at the Palestinian town of Nilin where Israel is building a barrier declared illegal by the World Court four years ago this week. The town has been kept under curfew for the fourth day to try to subdue a small group of protesters and journalists from approaching the cordoned-off town of 5,000. Ayman Nafi, the blockaded town's mayor, said one man was in critical condition and other people said others were hit by rubber bullets during stone-throwing clashes with soldiers. Nafi later said that the clashes had ended and that residents were allowed out of their homes within the confines of the town during the night, but that the curfew would be imposed again early tomorrow. An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers responded to violent protests in which protesters threw stones and other objects at them. "The forces initially used riot dispersal means, but when the clashes continued, they were authorized to use live ammunition... there has been a serious increase in violence in the area in recent days which is why the curfew has been imposed," the spokeswoman said. Nafi said Israel refused to allow ambulances to enter the town to ferry the wounded for treatment but the spokeswoman said Palestinian ambulances had been allowed in to treat casualties. Nafi said that vegetables, dairy products and some medicines were in short supply and the local pharmacy had not been allowed to open. "They want to send a message: resisting the construction of the wall will inflict suffering and damage upon you," Nafi said. "Their policy will increase our determination to prevent them from erecting this racist wall." The army imposed a curfew on Nilin, which lies in the West Bank some 20km east of Tel Aviv, on Friday after violence erupted during protests at a barrier construction site. An army spokesman said eight security personnel and two workers were hurt in protests in the area over the past month. Israel says the network of razor-wire fences and concrete barricades helps keep out Palestinian suicide bombers who killed nearly 300 Israelis in the three years between the start of an uprising in 2000 and the beginning of work on the barrier. Palestinians say the barrier, which loops around Jewish settlements that dot the occupied territory, cutting off Palestinian villages from swathes of agricultural fields, is a land grab that could deny them a contiguous and viable state. Khalil Amira, a farmer walking to his home near Nilin, said the army denied him access to 10 hectares of his land last month because of plans to extend the barrier, depriving him of the olive groves that provide his family's livelihood. "They want to remove us from our land - it's illegal," Amira, 61, told Reuters. "The land means I am still here and still alive. Without my land, I'm nothing. What do I do?" Mohammad Khawaja, a bank worker, said from Nilin that soldiers had arrested people who ventured outside during the night-and-day curfew imposed in the town on July 7. "When soldiers came to search my house early this morning, I asked one of them, 'What are you doing to Nilin?'" Khawaja said. "The soldier said 'The wall's going up, no matter what'." On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Israel's construction of the 720km barrier on occupied land was illegal. The United Nations says Israel has ignored that ruling. Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian peace negotiator, said: "We condemn the Israeli atrocities in Nilin and call for the immediate cessation of all wall and settlement construction."