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Birzeit University and Community March for an End to
Collective Punishment
Peace Must Be Built on Justice, Not on Ruin and Destruction
March 12th, 2001
Birzeit University faculty and staff are greatly heartened by the community and
international solidarity shown in the wake of the Israeli army's destruction of the only
road linking the University and thirty-three surrounding rural communities to Ramallah. On
12 March, on a bright spring morning, hundreds of Ramallah citizens, community leaders,
representatives of NGOs, legislators and governmental officials joined Birzeit faculty and
staff in a peaceful march and civil protest from Ramallah to the trenches gouged out of
the road - the new "borders" in which Ramallah, Birzeit and surrounding villages
are imprisoned and separated from each other. Today, communal action is brought into the
forefront of the national agenda.
With an Israeli tank and outpost on the hill, hundreds of marchers climbed over the three
trenches severing traffic on the road holding signs and banners against collective
punishment and for academic freedom and Palestinian independence. Striking a very personal
note, one faculty member with family in the northern part of the West Bank held a banner
with the simple message: "Open the roads! I want to visit my mother."
The Israeli army responded in the usual language of excessive force, hurling tear gas and
shooting rubber bullets into the heart of the march. At some point, and in response, youth
began to throw stones at Israeli jeeps positioned on the intersecting road. Wave after
wave of Palestinian ambulances rescued marchers overcome by gas or hurt by bullets. Over
80 civilians were injured. Tragically, it was too late for one young Palestinian, Abdul
Qadir Mohammad Ibrahim, who was killed by two live bullets that lodged in the chest.
His death is both a grim reminder of the almost 400 lost Palestinian lives since 29
September 2000 - and a portent of more bloodshed, loss of life and loss of hope if
Israel's policy of siege and blockade is allowed to continue.
The national movement has called today for holding national protest marches targeting the
checkpoints of siege on Wednesday, March 14th at midday. We appeal to you to organize
similar marches and activities worldwide, protesting the strangulation of the Palestinian
people and calling for the end of Israeli Occupation. . No peace can be built on the
destruction and ruin of another people, their society and their livelihoods
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