International Shia News Agency

Ma’an/Israeli forces disperse protests across West Bank, injuring 5

SHAFAQNA (International Shia News Association)-Five Palestinians were shot by Israeli forces on Friday as protests erupted across the central West Bank in protest against the Israeli occupation and the confiscation of Palestinian land to build the separation wall.

The protests, which come on the first day of the Islamic Eid al-Adha festival, were held by dozens of villagers in Kafr Qaddum and Bilin.

Kafr Qaddum

One Palestinian man was injured on Friday by Israeli sniper fire in the central West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum and four shot with rubber-coated steel bullets after clashes erupted following a protest march, organizers said.

Dozens also suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation as Israeli soldiers shot multiple rounds of tear gas canisters at the crowd, who were chanting slogans against Israeli settlement construction in the occupied territory.
An Israeli military spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.
The march was launched from the Omar Ibn al-Khattab mosque in the village center and headed toward a major road that Israeli forces have kept shut closed for years to Palestinian residents.
The coordinator of the march said that protests would continue in the village until all of their rights were achieved.
He also said in a statement that Israeli forces had deliberately sprayed houses and trees in the village with sewage water as a collective punishment against locals for the march.
Protests are held every Friday in Kafr Qaddum against Israel’s closure of a main road linking the village to its nearest city, Nablus, as well as against the Israeli occupation more generally.

Bilin

Dozens of Palestinians and foreign supporters also suffered from severe tear-gas inhalation after Israeli soldiers dispersed a weekly demonstration in the village of Bilin near Ramallah on Friday.
Palestinians, Israeli, and foreign activists participated in the weekly demonstration called for by the popular committees in Bilin to protest the occupation, the separation wall, and to express solidarity with occupied Jerusalem and its religious sites.
Israeli forces deployed near the separation wall firing rubber-coated bullets, tear-gas canisters, and stun grenades at participants as they approached lands near the wall, which cuts through the village and cuts off local farmers from their land.
Participants in the march held Palestinian flags and chanted slogans calling for national unity, resisting the occupation, and releasing the 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Since 2005, Bilin villagers have protested on a weekly basis against the Israeli separation wall that runs through their village on land confiscated from local farmers.
Previous protests by Bilin activists have forced the Israeli authorities to re-route the wall, but large chunks of the village lands remain inaccessible to residents because of the route.

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

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