NABLUS, Two Palestinians sustained injuries and other suffocated from Israeli army gunfire as settlers Wednesday overnight stormed Joseph’s Tomb in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that a sizable Israeli force escorted dozens of fanatic Jewish settlers into the site, located in the Palestinian-controlled area, sparking fierce confrontations with Palestinian residents.

The heavily-armed soldiers, he added, opened fire on Palestinian young men attempting to block the settlers’ access to the site and targeting the soldiers with firecrackers and stones, causing a number to suffocate from tear gas and directly hitting another by a tear gas canister in the foot and causing it to fracture.

Another young man sustained injuries after being run over by an army vehicle.

Both casualties were rushed to a hospital for treatment while the suffocation cases were treated at the scene.

The soldiers targeted media crews who attempted to cover the raid.

The site of Joseph’s Tomb is contentious. Palestinians believe the site to be the funerary monument to Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious figure, while Israeli settlers allege it to belong to the Biblical Patriarch Joseph.

Israel uses the Jewish nationalist name “Judea and Samaria” to refer to the occupied West Bank to reinforce its bogus claims to the territory and to give them a veneer of historical and religious legitimacy.

There are over 800,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency