MIDDLE EAST: They gather every Friday after communal prayers at the mosque in Bi'lin 20 minutes west of Ramallah: Palestinians, Israelis, and foreign peace activists in T-shirts, jeans and baseball caps, bandanas round their necks.
Waiting in the olive terraces on the slopes below the village are ranks of Israeli soldiers in visored helmets, carrying riot shields, guns with short tubes for barrels to fire tear gas, percussion grenades, weapons discharging rubber bullets and sand bullets.
Flanking the theatre of confrontation are great gashes in the hillsides marking the route of the wall that will cut off Bi'lin, an agricultural village, from 70 per cent of its land. Protesters stand toe-to-toe with Israeli soldiers blocking the road. Then the ritual dance begins.
Yesterday 150 Palestinians, 60 Israelis, and 50 foreigners from a dozen countries, including Ireland, confronted the soldiers until the sweating troops grew tired of the stand-off and fired the first volley of tear gas grenades.
The protesters, drawing their bandanas across their faces or holding onion slices to their noses, pulled back, gagging, eyes streaming, skin burning.
The troops advanced to the edge of the village shooting salvoes of tear gas and an occasional percussion grenade.
Palestinian youths responded by throwing eggs and stones at the soldiers who lobbed more tear gas canisters hissing into the village. Protesters and troops played cat and mouse for an hour and a half. The score was seven Israelis and four foreign peace activists arrested, two journalists hit by stones and a Palestinian baby boy of 1½ rushed to hospital after inhaling gas in his home.
Kobi, an Israeli from Tel Aviv, said the toll would have been much higher if there were no Israelis present. One protester said: "When Israelis take part, they don't shoot. The army has orders not to fire. It is essential for us to be here."
Fiona Smyth from Belfast, who is here studying the impact of the intifada on women's rights, was at the front when the melee began. "I grew up during the Troubles but I never have been in a situation of confrontation with soldiers before. I have never seen how dangerous they are," she said, shocked at the burst of violence on this peaceful hillside.
Rateb Abu Rahmah, known as the "Palestinian Gandhi," was shot in the thigh during one of the early protests in March and then imprisoned for two weeks.
"We've studied Gandhi's methods and we try to think up a new way to protest for each week." The latest was to flash into the eyes of the troops mirrors on which had been painted "No to the Wall" in Hebrew, English and Arabic.
Oded and Mira Efrat from the Israeli village of Tivon often come to Bi'lin. Oded said: "There is no justification for this wall. Its only purpose is to grab land."
