At least ten civilians were wounded as hundreds of villagers from Ni’lin, located near the West Bank city of Ramallah, took to the streets Friday afternoon to protest the construction of the Israeli apartheid wall on their land.

The protest was organized by the Ni’lin Committee Against the Wall.  They have been organizing nonviolent protests and demonstrations in the village on a regular basis for over six months.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers lined up to prevent the protest, which was to be a prayer at the lands slated for confiscation by the Israeli government.

Troops, however, fired dozens of tear gas canisters at the worshippers, preventing them from praying on the land.  The demonstrators where forced to pray in another place, away from the planned protest area.

Following the prayer, demonstrators carried their shoes in solidarity with the Iraqi journalist, Muntathar Al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush in a Baghdad press conference earlier this week.

Troops blocked the road leading to the confiscated land, and fired rubber-coated steel bullets that wounded three journalists, including cameraman of Palestinian Media & Communication Company (PMCC), Mustaf Khabeisa, in his leg, and two other international journalists, including a journalist from Sweden.  Sources at the Ni’lin committee said that seven others suffered injuries from gas inhalation, and were treated by field medics.

After the demonstration, some youth from the village clashed with Israeli troops by throwing rocks at them, wounding four soldiers.  At least a hundred soldiers proceeded to invade the village, carrying out house-to-house searches, firing tear gas at the residents’ houses in the process.

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