Palestinian media reported on Monday that several Palestinian villagers from the West Bank village of Beeta, south of Nablus city, have been treated for injuries caused by live and rubber-coated steel Israeli bullets and tear gas.
Medical sources said that at least three of those villagers were shot and wounded by live bullets, while 20 others were injured by coated-steel bullets, with some 50 others debilitated by tear gas inhalation.
Local sources in southern Nablus, including Ghassan Daghlas, head of the Palestinian agency monitoring Israeli settlement in the northern West Bank, said that hundreds of local villagers in the area surrounding the Erma hilltop, protested an invasion by armed Israeli settlers of the area.
Daghlas also noted that the crowd of Palestinians faced a tough Israeli response, as the Israeli army unleashed live ammunition and fired dozens of tear gas canisters.
Attacks by armed Israeli colonial settlers have been frequent over the several years, with settlement activities, backed by consecutive Israeli governments, having been exponentially increased.
Israel occupied the West Bank back, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip , in 1967 . In the late 1970s, Israel began settlements construction activities over Palestinian-owned lands. In 2005, the Israeli state evacuated settlers unilaterally, from Gaza, while vastly expanding settler colonies in the West Bank.
Israeli settlement activities are dubbed illegal by international law and United Nations relevant resolutions.
