Israeli forces today cracked down on an anti-settlement rally in Beit Dajan village, east of Nablus city, injuring dozens of participants, according to medical sources.
Ahmad Jibril, the head of the Emergency and Ambulance Department at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), said that PRCS medics treated 10 participants for rubber-coated bullet injuries and dozens others for tear gas suffocation after Israeli forces forcefully dispersed the rally.
The rally was called for to defend Palestinian-owned land threatened with confiscation, east of the village, to make room for Israeli colonial settlement construction.
Settlers installed an animal barn, extended water pipelines to supply the new outpost with water, and built a several-kilometers road, causing damage and seizing hundreds of donums of the villagers’ land.
Located 12 kilometers to the east of Nablus city, Beit Dajan has a population of some 4,700 and occupies a total area of 44,100 dunams, including 360 donums of built-up area for the villagers. A large part of the village lands were seized for the construction of Al-Hamra and Mekhora (Mehola) colonial settlements, east and southeast of the village, in 1971 and 1973.
The village depends on grains plantation and fruitful trees, such as olive, figs and almonds.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency