Palestinian youth have dug a hole in Israel’s separation wall with the Palestinian territories, as a symbolic gesture to mark 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Armed with hammers, a group of Palestinian activists on Saturday created a cavity in the wall that crosses through the West Bank village of Bir Nabala, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, braving tight Israeli security measures.
“It doesn’t matter how high the barriers will be, they will fall. Like the Berlin Wall fell - The Palestinian wall will fall,” the Palestinian activists who organised the event wrote in a statement according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall a quarter century ago is a key event in the breakdown of communism and the preface to Germany’s reunification in 1990.
During its 28-year existence, the Wall served as a symbol for communist oppression.
Palestinians refer to the current wall separating the West Bank from Israel as the “apartheid wall.”
Israel began work on the sprawling barrier in 2002 and has defended its construction as a crucial protective measure, pointing to a drop in attacks inside Israel as a proof of its success.
But the Palestinians say the wall is a land grab. Large tracts of Palestinian land have been confiscated by the Israeli government to build it. When complete, 85% of it will have been built inside the West Bank.
