Several Palestinian and international protesters sustained injuries today as Israeli occupation forces attacked weekly protests against illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank districts of Hebron and Qalqilia, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
In the Hebron Governorate, Israeli occupation soldiers quelled with teargas a nonviolent march organized by hundreds of Palestinian protesters and international solidarity activists in the Masafer Yatta area, injuring at least one woman protester with a gas canister in her foot and detaining an elderly man. Other protesters were even beaten up by the soldiers, while sustained suffocation from gas inhalation.
#Israeli occupation forces assault several Palestinian and international activists taking part in a protest against the Israeli colonial settlements in the area of Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, today.
Photos by: Mash'hour Wihwah pic.twitter.com/QbJNbZzh23
— Quds News Network (@Qudsn_en) January 15, 2021
The protest was organized in support of the local Palestinian Bedouin communities against a recent surge in the Israeli army and settler attacks, as well as in protest of Israeli threats to confiscate large tracts of Palestinian land in the area in favor of the nearby Jewish settlements.
The protesters waved flags of Palestine and banners condemning the ongoing violations by the Israeli occupation against the Bedouin population of Masafer Yatta.
.@JMVivancoHRW Several Palestinian & intn'l protesters sustained injuries on Friday as Israeli forces attacked weekly protests against Israeli colonial settlements in the West Bank districts of Hebron & Qalqilia, according to local sources & witnesses. Source: @WAFA_PS pic.twitter.com/tL0jbCiryT
— DigilanteJane™ (@JaneVoter) January 15, 2021
Meanwhile, four Palestinians were injured by Israeli occupation forces today during the weekly protest against Jewish settlements in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near the city of Qalqilia in the northern West Bank.
Morad Shtewi, an official in charge of the popular resistance file in the village, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated rounds and teargas at the protesters, injuring four of them by rubber-coated rounds. Others also sustained suffocation from gas inhalation.
The injured were treated at the scene by local medics.
For many years, villagers from Kafr Qaddum and neighboring villages have been protesting every Friday against illegal Jewish settlements, as well as to call on Israeli authorities to reopen the village’s main road, which has been sealed off by the occupation authorities since 2002.
(WAFA, PC, Social Media)
