127 Palestinians Injured as Israeli Settlers Attack Villagers Near Nablus (+Video)
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced, on Thursday, that at least 127 Palestinians injured, as a result of confrontations with the Israeli forces, while protecting hundreds of extremist settlers who raided the village of Burqa in the occupied West Bank.
Local sources said dozens of buses fully loaded with hundreds of extremist Israeli settlers were seen today at Route 60, adjacent to the Burqa village.
The settlers were standing in the main Jenin-Nablus street and blocked access of Palestinian vehicles, Quds News Network reported.
Thousands of Israeli settlers have been protesting there since yesterday, calling on the occupation government to let them return to the nearby pre-2005 Israeli settlement of Homesh.
The settlers also attacked several Palestinian vehicles and at least three Palestinian-owned houses and a car wash, on the outskirts of Burqa village.
They also attacked and vandalized several gravestones in a cemetery in the village.
Shortly after, the occupation forces came to the scene to protect the settlers; they attacked the Palestinians by firing rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas canisters and sound bombs directly and intensively, injuring over 127 Palestinians.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 42 Palestinians, including a journalist, were injured by the rubber-coated metal bullets and 67 sustained suffocation from inhalation of tear gas.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said a Palestinian girl was also treated as she has been in a state of shock after a group of extremis Israeli settlers attacked her family’s house on the outskirts of the village, adding that two ambulance vehicles were hit by sound bombs and tear gas canisters fired by the Israeli forces.
This week, Israeli media reported that the occupation forces have dismantled structures at the evacuated illegal settlement of Homesh Yeshiva on the road between Nablus and Jenin.
They added that Israeli settlers had started constructing a religious school in the evacuated settlement aiming to re-occupy the area.
The Israeli move to dismantle the school comes a few days after a resistance operation in the illegal settlement, which took place amid a spike in settler violence against Palestinians and their properties in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The decision outraged settlers in the occupied West Bank, who said that the Israeli occupation authorities rewarded the resistance.
The Israeli forces had evacuated the settlement in 2005 following a series of resistance operations that caused its settlers to escape.
There are 280 illegal settlements in the West Bank, which are home to more than 440,000 settlers.
