Residents of Bilin village, 12 kilometers west of Ramallah, have created an oasis in the middle of the desert landscapes of the West Bank, and sown flower seeds in tear gas canisters which were fired at protesters by Israeli forces.

“We can make life out of these gas canisters which can kill people. We plant flowers inside these things,” Khadi Abu Rahma, a Palestinian journalist and one of the garden’s creators told.

Khadi is cousin of Bassem Abu Rahma, a protest leader who was killed in 2009 when a tear gas canister struck him in the chest. The garden is to commemorate him and other victims of the Palestinians’ fight for their land.

Residents of Bilin say 60% of their farmland was cut off by the Israeli separation wall.

Bilin has become a symbol of Palestinian protests against Israeli policies in the West Bank.

Since 2005, villagers have been going out almost every Friday for anti-wall protests, which would often result on violent crackdowns by Israeli forces. The village's struggle to regain its land became the subject of a 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary - "Five Broken Cameras."

Despite protests, Israel insists on keeping Palestinians out.

The Israeli regime began building the separation wall in 2002, and the route has been the target of regular protest rallies waged by residents of border towns whose land has been cut off by the lengthy wall.

The Tel Aviv regime has further confiscated large plots of Palestinian land in order to erect the barrier, widely referred to as the apartheid wall. When the 435-mile barricade is complete, 85 percent of it will have been built inside the occupied West Bank.

RA/HH