Israel to deport foreigners arrested during West Bank protest
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Reuters
Arnon Regular, Amos Harel and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents
Some 30 demonstrators, eight of whom were Israelis and foreigners, were lightly wounded Wednesday in a violent confrontation with security forces at the separation fence near Qafr Budrous.
A border policeman was also lightly wounded.
Some 200 Palestinian villagers, mostly women, and left-wing activists were demonstrating for the second consecutive day against the construction of a portion of the fence north of Modi'in. The construction, which commenced a few days ago, involved uprooting the village's olive groves, and the fence is to surround the village from every direction.
The non-Palestinian demonstrators consisted of Israeli and international peace activists - including Swedish member of parliament Gustav Fridolin, who was also one of the wounded - and representatives of "Anarchists Against the Fence," one of whose members, Gal Na'amati, was wounded by gunshots from soldiers over the weekend.
Shortly after the demonstration began, soldiers and border policemen fired rubber-coated bullets and threw gas grenades at the protesters. According to military sources, they did so after demonstrators threw stones at the troops. The confrontation continued for several hours, and eight of the Israeli and foreign demonstrators were arrested.
The four foreign activists are being held pending their expulsion, after an Interior Ministry official held a hearing for them at the Binyamin police station. The two Swedish citizens were incarcerated in the Shomron police station and the two American activists in the Michal compound.
Wednesday's demonstration marked the first time that residents of a Palestinian village directly affected by the fence have participated in an organized demonstration against it. Until recently, Fatah members and the Palestinian Authority had refrained from taking part in protest actions, and those Palestinian protests that did occur did not receive wide media coverage. Thus most of the protests were carried out by Israeli and foreign activists.
The Budrous demonstration thus marks a turning point in Palestinian policy toward the fence, and joint protest action is expected to increase from now
