On Friday afternoon, Israeli forces invaded several towns in the West Bank to attack non-violent protest marches organized by Palestinian peace groups in Battir (west of Bethlehem), Hebron, and Kufur Qaddoum.
In Battir, local sources reported that the Israeli soldiers attacked the non-violent demonstration which was being held in the Bardmo area, which is threatened by Israeli colonizers, who are trying to take over the land to construct an illegal Israeli colony there. The land in question is located in the town of Battir, west of Bethlehem, in the southern occupied West Bank.
The correspondent with the Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported that the Israeli forces assaulted the citizens participating in the event after they performed Friday prayers in the area threatened by the seizure, but no injuries were reported.
The head of the local Committee Against Settlements, Muayyad Shaaban, said that the world should stand up in the face of the ongoing attacks by settlers against the Palestinian people, their lands and properties. He stressed that peaceful popular activities will continue in the face of the settlement construction that aims to displace Palestinian people and seize their lands with the aim of expansion of the state of Israel onto Palestinian land.
Israel, which was created in 1948 and has never declared its borders, has continuously expanded its territory through military force in violation of national law, and now controls 87% of the original land of Palestine, leaving the Palestinians with just 13% of their original land.
In Battir this past Tuesday, the activists of the Palestinian popular resistance managed to force settlers to evacuate the land they tried to seize in the “Bardmo” area in the town of Battir, which has an area of 23 dunums and belongs to the Alyan family. The settlers had set up a tent in the ground 40 meters long and 10 meters wide, and water tanks, and brought their livestock, before they were forced to dismantle the tent and leave the place.
In Kufur Qaddoum, in the northern West Bank — another area threatened by Israeli colonial expansion — 8 civilians were wounded with rubber-coated metal bullets, and dozens suffered from tear gas inhalation, during the Israeli army’s suppression of the weekly Kufur Qaddoum anti-settlement march.
The march was held, as it is every Friday, to demand the opening of the village street that has been closed for more than 17 years in order to push the construction of the “Qaddumim” illegal Israeli colonial settlement built on illegally-seized Palestinian village lands. .
The media spokesman in the Qalqilia region, Morad Eshteiwi, stated that violent confrontations erupted with the Israeli soldiers who tried to storm the town, when the citizens confronted them.
Hundreds of townspeople participated in the march chanted patriotic slogans calling for an end to the occupation and an escalation of popular resistance.
Eshteiwi pointed out that the Israeli soldiers fired rubber coated steel bullets and a barrage of tear gas, which led to the injury of 8 civilians in their limbs.
In Hebron, in the southern West Bank, Israeli forces shot and wounded two young men with live ammunition and three others with rubber-coated metal bullets on Friday.
The shootings took place during an Israeli invasion of Al-Shallala Street in the center of Hebron. The invading troops were met by young men and teens who protested their invasion of the Palestinian city. Some of the young men threw stones at the invading army, which the soldiers responded to by firing live ammunition toward the crowd, injuring two.
According to local sources, soldiers fired live and rubber coated steel bullets, and a barrage of tear gas canisters at citizens, which led to the injury of two young men with live bullets in the feet, and 3 others with rubber-coated metal bullets, and dozens of people suffered inhalation effects from tear gas.
