Palestinians protesting against Prawer Plan
MEMO | December 1, 2013
The global ‘Day of Rage’ against the Prawer Plan included demonstrations and other solidarity actions in more than 24 cities around the world.
According to Adalah: the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, who are challenging the Prawer Plan within the Israeli courts, the Prawer Plan will forcibly displace up to 70,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel from the Naqab.
For Palestinian holders of Israeli-issued West Bank ID cards, reaching the main demonstration in the Naqab was impossible due to the imposed travel restrictions, so an alternative demonstration was held alongside Beit El Jewish colony near Ramallah. Further demonstrations were held in Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem and Gaza.
The chosen protest site of the Beit El colony, which is built on land stolen from al-Bireh and also from the village of Dura al-Qara, was significant as the Prawer Plan constitutes part of the same ongoing displacement and colonisation project that is being implemented across all areas of historic Palestine. Three activists were arrested as Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) violently attacked the protest with substantial amounts of tear gas and percussion grenades.
One of the activists who was beaten by Israeli forces during his arrest, Abud Hama’il, explained the motivation for these events before being forced into an Israeli police jeep:
‘The Naqab is facing attacks like all of Palestine. We are one people, one struggle, one homeland, one sacrifice. Today a Palestinian worker was killed in Petah Tikva, he wasn’t involved in anything. The people must rise. The people, whose land is being stolen; the people, everyday they want to move us to Jordan – we need to resist, there is no choice…’