Press Release: Women's March to Protest the Apartheid Wall Women’s Committee Against the Wall, 6 September 2003 On Saturday, September 6, Israeli border police used tear gas to disperse a group of over 200 Palestinian and international women at Irtah checkpoint, in Tulkarem.  The Palestinian and international women had marched nonviolently to the gate to meet a group of over 250 Israeli women, who had gathered on the other side of the Apartheid Wall.  The demonstration, organized by the Tulkarem Women’s Committee Against the Wall, the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, and International Women’s Peace Service, was the first joint women’s action against the Wall, which virtually imprisons the city of Tulkarem and many other areas of the West Bank. Many of the Palestinian women had brought babies and small children, and left immediately when the gas was thrown.  Others held firm, and insisted that the Israeli women be allowed to cross the checkpoint to join them.  Among those who were gassed were eight United States citizens from Code Pink, a feminist organization opposing U.S. military involvement in the Middle East.  The Code Pink delegation traveled in the West Bank, Israel and Gaza for eight days to learn about how women can play a positive role for peace in the Middle East. “Over the last week we have seen the constant assaults on Palestinian life, liberty and dignity,” said Medea Benjamin, a founder of Code Pink and a former Senatorial candidate from California.  “As American citizens, whose government provides more than $13 million a day to fund atrocities like the Apartheid Wall, we must do everything we can to oppose them, even if we face violence ourselves.” Israel has confiscated over 3,000 dunums of agricultural land in the Tulkarem Region for the construction of the Wall, which snakes in miles from the Green Line, encircling entire communities and separating farmers from their land.  In the Tulkarem region alone over 30,000 dunums of land falls on the Israeli side of the wall.  In addition, the wall in this region annexes over 26 wells and curtails the movement of farmers, schoolchildren and medical personnel due to the creation of dozens of new military checkpoints and gates. Initially, the border police announced that any Palestinian or international women who did not leave the area immediately would be arrested.  When the women refused to leave, however, they eventually allowed a delegation of about 50 women to cross from the Israeli to the Palestinian side.  The women shared songs in Arabic and Hebrew and exchanged messages of solidarity. “It is really important that women from Palestine and international women come together to protest against the Apartheid Wall, particularly at this time,” said Hanan, an organizer of the Tulkarem Women’s Committee Against the Wall.  “The Wall is built on land that is being confiscated from Palestine.  Women will continue to struggle against apartheid and