During Friday’s weekly protests around the West Bank, the Israeli army failed to stop a group of Palestinian and international from walking on a settlers’ only road in the Palestinian village of al-Walajeh, near Bethlehem, while suppression of other protests was widely reported and a settler attack near Bethlehem injured a 70-year-old man.
An Israeli soldier holds a tear gas canister and assault rifle at a demonstration in Bil'in (Brendan Work, PNN).
In al-Walajeh, the protesters were assaulted by Israeli soldiers shortly thereafter, according to protest organizer Mohammed Ahmed Bashir. “Dozens” were detained for trespassing in the illegal settlement of Har Gilo. Israeli soldiers also fired sound bombs and tear gas as well.
Mazen al-Azzeh, coordinator of the Bethlehem Popular Campaign Against the Wall and Settlements, said Friday’s protest was a “response to a policy of plunder, confiscation, and land destruction.”
In the central West Bank village of al-Nabi Saleh, the Israeli army invaded homes in the early morning and closed the village before the weekly protest began. Nevertheless protesters clashed with troops throughout the afternoon and at least three Palestinians were hit directly with tear gas canisters.
Shooting tear gas canisters directly at protesters is against Israeli army open-fire codes, which specify the canisters—which can be lethal—must be released in arcs in the air.
In the village of al-Khader, on the outskirts of Bethlehem, a group of Israeli settlers attacked and injured a 70-year-old man. The man’s name was not reported but his son, Hassan Salah, told Palestinian government news wire Wafa that he and his family had been “surprised” by a large group of settlers picking from the Salah family’s olive trees.
“While we were trying to stop them from picking from our trees, they attacked us with sticks and loosed a dog on us,” said Hassan. “My father was injured when they hit him with a stick.”
The family confronted Israeli authorities about the incident at the Etzion settlement but were turned away.
Salah told Wafa that the settler responsible for the attack, Nadia Matar, was the same woman who attacked elderly Palestinian farmers from Artas village during Eid al-Adha. She has been leading these attacks, according to Salah, in order to scare Palestinians off their land and make more room for the expansion of the area settlements.
Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation were also reported in Kafr Qadum, al-Ma’sara, Bil’in, and Beit Omar.
In Beit Omar, a town lying directly between the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Hebron, Israeli border guards arrested one youth and fired tear gas directly into some homes. They also injured two elderly Palestinian men participating in a demonstration against the seizure of Beit Omar’s agricultural land.
Both 75-year-old Mahmoud Musa al-Salibi and 78-year-old Saeed Shahada Adi suffered “heavy bruising” to their bodies, according to Wafa.
PNN - Palestine News Network
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