Non-violent Women’s Day demo of women at the Qalandia checkpoint violently suppressed by Israel – Photography & Video

Hundreds of Palestinians marked International Women’s Day by marching in solidarity with 22-day female hunger striker Hana Shalabi on Thursday.

Shalabi has been refusing food since she was arrested in a violent late-night raid on her house on February 16.

Several hundred women marched to the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Wednesday, calling for Israel to end its segregation and recognize Palestinian rights.

Israeli troops attempted to disperse them using “The Screamer,” a device that emits high-pitched sound waves which can cause deafening.

The protesters sang the Palestinian national anthem in solidarity, but the all-female peaceful march was eventually broken up after Israeli forces fired tear gas and water at the crowd.

Halabi is being held under Israel’s administrative detention policy without charge or trial.

The policy allows Israel to detain Palestinians without revealing what evidence is being held against them for a period of up to six months.

The term can be renewed, effectively enabling Israel to jail Palestinians indefinitely without charge.

The Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations expressed solidarity with Shalabi on Thursday and condemned Israel’s continued use of administrative detention.

“Although no Palestinian is left untouched by the occupation, it is true that women are, in many cases, doubly affected by Israel’s illegal practices,” a statement from the group read.

“However, internment also affects a large number of Palestinian women indirectly; those wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of detainees who endeavor to maintain community and family structures while they wait indefinitely for their family members to be freed.”

Janan Abdu, a Palestinian feminist activist and the wife of political prisoner Ameer Makhoul, said the day was particularly important to Palestinian women.

“In Palestine, Women’s Day is a day of struggle. Despite the achievements of some significant things, which were achieved as a result of long struggle, we shouldn’t celebrate yet, we are still Palestinian women, whether in Palestine 1948 or in the West Bank and Gaza or the Diaspora suffering from colonialism, occupation, discrimination and racism,” she said in a statement.

“Our women pay the price in captivity, detention, investigation and insults, and pay the price of the longest-lived Israeli occupation and colonialism.”

Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank, and a siege on the Gaza Strip.

The Jewish state has expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international law and to the detriment of indigenous Palestinians.

(Al-Akhbar)

More in Media

• Palestinian rallies mark Women’s Day – France24 – March 8, 2012
• Palestinian rallies mark Women’s Day – Ahram Online – March 8, 2012

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