Palestinians campaign against wildcat settlement

BEITA, Palestinian Territories: Using laser pointers and noisy horns to torment illegal Jewish settlers across the valley, Palestinians in Beita have set themselves apart from others demonstrating against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

But beyond attention-grabbing tactics, protesters in the Palestinian town near Nablus insist their weeks-long campaign against the wildcat settlement of Eviatar is distinct for another reason.

They describe it as a grassroots movement, not inspired or directed by Fatah secularists who control the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, or their rivals from the Islamist Hamas that runs the Gaza Strip.

"Here there is only one flag: That of Palestine. There are no factions," Said Hamayel told AFP. "We are doing from below what Palestinian leaders cannot do from above," argued Hamayel, who said his 15-year-old son Mohammed was killed by Israeli army gunfire in a mid-June protest. The army said it had opened fire to suppress "rioters" who posed a grave threat to troops.