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Palestinians Injured as International Activists Protest
GAZA CITY, Aug 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Seven Palestinians were wounded Friday as Israeli occupation troops opened fire on them near Rafah in the Gaza Strip, news agencies reported Palestinian security sources as saying, as activists from several countries gathered in the West Bank to protest Israeli occupation.
Five of the seven injured were children, including two boys, one 10-year-old and a 13-year-old who was seriously wounded, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Medical sources said the boys were taken to Rafah Hospital.
The Palestinians were hit by live bullets after Israeli security forces opened fire on them with heavy machine gun fire and five shells from tanks near the Israeli-Egyptian border.
The two Israeli tanks, which opened fire, and one bulldozer had moved 50 yards into Palestinian territory near the Rafah refugee camp.
Meanwhile, about 80 activists from the United States, Germany, Italy, France, England and other European countries continued demonstrations in the West Bank in an effort to stop the ongoing Palestinian bloodshed.
The multi-national body of demonstrators included an umbrella group of activists called the International Solidarity Movement - a group established by Heidi Arraf, an American citizen of Palestinian origin.
The group supports Palestinians in their struggle for statehood and works to help end nearly 11 months of violence.
"Our governments are calling for the same thing - you must take action to end the violence. But no one is taking action. We are," said Arraf.
The activists came to the occupied Palestinian territories in response to mass e-mail calls from local activists to join in two weeks of demonstrations.
For the last two weeks, they have scuffled with Israeli police who took over the unofficial Palestinian Authority headquarters in East Jerusalem in a move that drew international condemnation.
The foreign activists spent the night with Palestinian families in Beit Jala during firefights with Israeli occupation forces and held demonstrations demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
The group of foreign demonstrators, which included 20 Americans, tried to act as human shields in front of Palestinians during exchanges of fire with Israeli occupation forces.
"At a certain point, when people are being shot and killed on a regular basis, the only way to non-violently stop it is to put your bodies in between the shooters and the people who are being shot," one activist said.
On Tuesday, Israeli police and border guards, according to a report in the British daily, The Independent, beat protestors demonstrating against the Israeli occupation of Orient House in Jerusalem.
The British correspondent was one of several journalists and humanitarian workers who witnessed the severe beating of Palestinian protestors, many of whom were kicked, punched in the face and beaten repeatedly.
One young Palestinian man who tried to escape the grasp of the police was recaptured and kicked while being dragged up the street towards Orient House, and in an Israeli police van was held down and kicked between the legs until he was sobbing, The Independent article said.
Israeli and international human rights organizations have harshly criticized the mistreatment of Palestinians by Israeli police and soldiers.
In another serious development, Jewish settlers took over an abandoned West Bank mosque and converted it into a synagogue, sources close to the settlers said Friday.
Members of the messianic, ultra-Orthodox Habad movement took over the building in the town of Sa Nur, near Nablus.
The extremist Jewish group established their settlement in the center of a Palestinian village, occupied the mosque and converted it into a synagogue.
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