"Brick by brick, wall by wall, the occupation has to fall," chanted the pacifists

DEIR EL GHOSSOON, West Bank, Aug 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) -  Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas grenades and rubber bullets Friday, August 1, at more than 1,000 Palestinians and foreign peace activists who were demonstrating against the Israeli construction of a separation wall in the occupied West Bank, wounding eleven people.

The pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said three Palestinians and eight foreigners were injured, reported the Israeli Haaretz newspaper on its website.

The ISM held another demonstration in the northern town of Qalqilya on Thursday, July 31, on the same day the Israeli authorities announced the completion of the first section of the controversial barrier, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Palestinians and foreign pacifists marched through Qalqilya up to the wall which takes the form of a ten-meter high wall in the West Bank town.

A group of around 25 Israeli soldiers looked on as the activists hurled balloons towards the wall filled with red, black, white and green paint -- the colors of the Palestinian flag.

Some also managed to paint slogans in English on the concrete reading "Tear Down the Wall" and "Free Palestine".

Other slogans were written in Arabic and Spanish, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

A group of Israeli activists who had been bussed in from Tel Aviv could be seen through a gate on the other side of the wall.

During the march through Qalqilya, the protestors chanted: "Brick by brick, wall by wall, the occupation has to fall."

The controversial barrier, which in other parts takes the form of a two-tiered wire fence, has angered Palestinians who regard it as an attempt by Israel to set in stone the boundaries of their future state as it cuts deep into their territory at times.

Five foreign peace activists were wounded when Israeli forces used live ammunition to disperse protestors against the separation wall on Monday, July 28.

The ISM has been leading a campaign in recent weeks to protest against the separation wall as well as roadblocks hampering freedom of movement in the West Bank.

Israeli soldiers fired teargas bombs and rubber bullets at the protestors

U.S. activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah in March and fellow British ISM member Tom Hurndall was shot dead by Israeli forces in the same area a month later.

Israel has come under mounting international criticism over the racist separation wall.

Chiding Israel over the issue, U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan stressed : "I know it's the conventional wisdom that fences make good neighbors, but that is if you build a fence on your own land and you don't disrupt your neighbor's life."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair also criticized the wall asserting: "What we don't want is a situation where, de facto, the boundaries are changed, because that would mean that a peace settlement is less likely and less possible."

Hunger strike

Palestinian detainees in four Israeli jails went on hunger strike Friday to express their solidarity with prisoners who protested their conditions the previous day, a Palestinian rights activist told AFP.

"Prisoners in Beersheva, Nafha, Shatta and Hadarim decided to go on a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with their brothers in Shikma," said Issa Qaraqaa who heads the Palestinian Captives Club and contacted inmates by telephone.

He said the strike was being followed by 1,800 prisoners who "are also aggravated by the behavior of the Israeli prison authorities."

At least ten Palestinian prisoners were wounded in the southern Israeli jail Shikma on Thursday after Israeli police used teargas to quell their protest against inhuman conditions in Israeli jails.

But Haaretz said two guards and 20 prisoners were injured from inhaling the tear gas that security officials.

An Israeli prison service source said calm had been restored to the prison near Ashkelon after the disorder which involved some 200 prisoners.

The disturbances first broke out after prison guards had conducted searches of the cells following the alleged "discovery of a note on which there was a plan of the prison", a spokesman for the prison service told AFP.

However, Qaraqaa insisted the riot had broken out as a result of a decision to erect a plastic wall in the visiting area.

"Inmates can no longer shake hands and embrace their families as they were doing when there was just a fence," he said.