Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire Shot With Rubber Bullet by Israeli Military [1]

We turn now to Israel and the Occupied Territories. Israeli forces have killed eight Palestinians over the past two days including a 17-year-old girl and a Palestinian police officer. Meanwhile Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas at a non-violent protest against the separation wall near the West Bank village of Bilin. Several protesters were injured including the Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire who was shot with a rubber bullet. Mairead has just returned to Ireland.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli forces have killed eight Palestinians over the past two days, including a seventeen-year-old girl and a Palestinian police officer. Meanwhile, Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas at a nonviolent protest against the separation wall near the West Bank village of Bilin. Several protesters were injured, including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire. She was shot with a rubber bullet. She returned yesterday to Ireland, where she joins us now on the line. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Mairead Maguire.

MAIREAD MAGUIRE: Good afternoon, Amy, and to all your listeners.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what happened?

MAIREAD MAGUIRE: Yes. I was invited with my friend to attend a nonviolent conference in Bilin, a village outside Ramallah, and to give a talk there, which I did. At the end of the conference, we were invited to participate in a nonviolent demonstration with some of the Palestinian members of parliament, including Dr. Barghouti, and Israeli peace activists and local villagers and international visitors from over several hundred countries so -- or several hundred international peace activists from over twenty countries.

We walked along to try to walk up toward the separation wall, and it was a totally nonviolent protest. And we were viciously attacked by the Israeli military. They threw gas canisters into the peace walkers, and they also fired rubber-covered steel bullets. As I tried to move back and helping a French lady, I was shot in the leg with a rubber-covered steel bullet, and the young Israeli soldier who shot me was only twenty meters from me. I was stunned by it, and then later on, after having some treatment by the ambulance medics, I went back down to the front line with the peace activists, and we were again showered with gas. I was overcome and had a severe nosebleed and had to be taken by stretcher to the ambulance and treated.

And I witnessed there a Palestinian woman, maybe around in her sixties, and an old Palestinian man with blood on his face. These were over twenty-five unarmed peace people who had been viciously attacked by the Israeli military. And it was a completely peaceful protest. It was absolutely unbelievable. I never in all my years of activism witnessed anything so vicious as from the Israeli military....

Bookmark/Search this post with:

[3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [7] | [8] | [9] | [10] | [11] | [12]