NABLUS, Dozens of Palestinians were injured by military live fire as Israeli forces today quelled an anti-settlement rally in Beita town, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to local and medical sources.
They said that Israeli forces cracked down on a rally called for to protest the construction of the new colonial settlement of Givat Eviatar atop Jabal Sabih (Sabih Mountain), near the town.
Participants of the rally gathered could not make their way to Jabal Sabih, but rather gathered at the main entrance of the town after Israeli forces shut down the entrances by cement blocks and earth mounds.
Director of the Palestinian Red Crescent’s (PRC) Emergency Department in Nablus, Ahmad Jibril, said five participants were hit by rubber-coated steel bullets, dozens others suffocated from tear gas inhalation, and still others sustained injuries from falling from high places after being chased by the soldiers and due to severe beating.
The nonviolent rally was called for after a group of Israeli settlers set up over 20 mobile homes or caravans atop the mount as a prelude for taking over the complete mount and establishing a colonial outpost.
The weekly rally came a day after Ahmad Zahi Bani-Shamsa, 16, was laid to rest after succumbing to his critical injury he sustained in the head after being hit by live ammunition shot by Israeli soldiers as he protested against the construction of the new colonial settlement on his town’s land.
Protests against the illegal colonial settlement outpost in Beita are faced with live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. Bani-Shamsa was the fourth Palestinian killed in addition to over 500 injuries.
The number of settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion has tripled since the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993.
Israel’s nation-state law, passed in July 2018, enshrines Jewish supremacy, and states that building and strengthening the colonial settlements is a “national interest.”
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency