by Lisa Hix
Tristan Anderson, a 38-year-old Oakland resident, is in stable condition today after he was critically injured in the aftermath of a protest in Israel's West Bank on Friday when he was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister launched by Israel Defense Forces. He had to undergo brain surgery and have part of his frontal lobe removed, and is now in the ICU at the Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv, with his girlfriend Gabrielle Silverman, of Oakland, who was with him we he was shot.
Unarmed demonstrators had gathered in the village of Ni'lin to protest the construction of a barrier designed to separate the West Bank from the rest of Israel, which was deemed illegal in 2004 by the International Court of Justice and will cost the village valuable agricultural land. According to the International Solidarity Movement Palestine, during Friday's protest, a Ni'lin resident was shot in the leg and three others suffered minor injuries. Already in the past year four village residents have died in demonstrations against this wall, ages 10, 17, 20 and 22.