BETHLEHEM, Israeli forces Monday evening sealed off the entrance of Tuqu‘ town, southeast of Bethlehem, according to a local official.

The town mayor, Tayseer Abu Mifreh, said that Israeli forces closed the western and northern entrances of the southern West Bank town.

Today morning, the gun-toting soldiers stormed the town and surrounded the area of Khirbet Ad-Deir area, triggering confrontations.

The soldiers opened fire at the protesters, hitting a minor by a rubber-coated steel bullet in the thigh and causing several others to suffocate from tear gas.

Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement through a complex combination of approximately 100 fixed checkpoints, flying checkpoints, settler-only roads and various other physical obstructions.

Closures besides to other measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 51-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency