EU official: Border cops tear-gassed me

Jerome Bellion-Jourdan tells 'Post' incident occurred during fact-finding tour of security fence near Ni'ilin.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF, ABE SELIG
Nilin protest Border police 248.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi )
Nilin protest Border police 248.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi )
An EU official said on Tuesday that border policemen had fired tear gas canisters at him while he was touring the area around Ni'lin, where preparations are under way to build part of the security barrier. One of the tear gas canisters lightly injured Ahed Khawaja, a member of Ni'lin's Popular Committee Against the Wall, who was accompanying the EU official. Tuesday's incident was the latest violent altercations between security forces and villagers and their supporters who have been protesting the construction of the barrier on the outskirts of the community. According to a UN report issued on Monday, 96 Palestinians were injured in August at anti-barrier demonstrations near Ni'lin, which is just northwest of Modi'in Illit. Jerome Bellion-Jourdan, a political attaché with the EU Commission office in the capital, told The Jerusalem Post he had gone out to Ni'lin for the first time on Tuesday, to investigate the situation on behalf of the EU. He met with several members of the village's Popular Committee Against the Wall, including Khawaja. A group of about five men from the village took him on a short tour of the area near the barrier. "We were approached by a jeep belonging to the Border Police and we were asked to leave the place within two minutes. "I asked, 'What does it mean, two minutes?" recalled Bellion-Jourdan. "I mentioned I was a representative of the EU." The police simply repeated the demand, he said. Bellion-Jourdan complied, but before turning around to go, he told the police that he understood their order as a threat. He and the committee members turned around and walked back toward the village when the police fired a round of tear gas toward them. Khawaja, who was about 10 meters behind him, turned around to see what was going on, said Bellioin-Jourdan. At that point, the police fired a second round, which hit Khawaja in the forehead. Stunned, he was evacuated by the other Palestinians, as a few more rounds were fired in their direction, said Bellion-Jourdan. Khawaja was then taken to Sheikh Zaide Hospital in Ramallah and treated for severe bruising to the face and blood-loss. Border Police spokesman Moshe Pinchi denied that events unfolded as described by Bellion-Jourdan. Pinchi said his officers had not fired tear gas at the group as it departed. "There's no way that the Border Police fired on the group as they were leaving. There's absolutely no way," he said. But he did not deny that a tear gas incident took place at Ni'lin on Tuesday. "The area is a closed military zone, and anyone who enters it without permission from the army is committing a serious disruption of law and order and a gross violation of the law. "The Border Police forces on the ground rose to the task of preventing the disruption of law and order, and an unlawful entry into a closed military zone," Pinchi said. His office had not been informed that an EU official was in the area, he said. "What was [the EU official] doing there? How did he get there? Was he holding a huge sign that said, 'I am a European Union official?" he asked. Pinchi said that tours of the planned barrier route were allowed, if groups coordinated their movements with the security forces. "But they didn't do that," he said. "Show me another place in the world where you can just show up at a closed military zone with an international representative, and start arguing with the soldiers there, who are just trying to their job. The next thing we know, they're going to put a baby in the field, start some sort of a problem, and then say that we were firing at the baby." Bellion-Jourdan said he had not been aware that the area was off limits. "There was no sign indicating that this was a closed military zone," he said. Nor, he said, was it the practice of his office to notify the Border Police when traveling in the West Bank.