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14 May 2010 The weeky protests in Nabi Saleh have quickly gained a reputation as the most violent of the West Bank demonstrations, yesterdays proved true to the norm where an arrested Israeli woman was repeatedly kicked and savaged on the ground by a Border Police thug and the villagers were subjected to blizzards of tear gas and live fire. According to the ISM : The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village residents olive trees by the Halamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in January 2010 due to the settlers attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Halamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since its establishment in 1977 Near the village is a natural spring named Ein Al Kus ("the Bow Spring"). In 2009 settlers from the nearby settlement of Halamish took control over the spring and it's surroundings while preventing Palestinian access to it. Subsequently, people of Nabi Salih and the nearby village of Dir Nizam began regular friday protests for the spring which they claim as their own, and against the Israeli occupation in general
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