Palestinians Injured after Clashes with Israeli Forces during Protest against Nablus Siege


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli forces at a march that took place to protest the siege at Hawara checkpoint, south of Nablus, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The occupying regime started imposing the siege around three weeks ago as means of hunting down Palestinian fighters hailing from a West Bank-based resistance group known as Lions' Den.

Dalal Salameh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, told AFP: "The occupation wants to give the impression that the situation is normal, and that some people leave and enter for humanitarian reasons. But in fact, Nablus is living under a complete siege, and the world should pay attention to this siege. All countries and organizations must pay attention to it."

Muhammad Hamdan, secretary general of the movement in Nablus, meanwhile said, at times the regime "claims that it has eased the siege" in order to "lure some resistance fighters."

Also on Tuesday, Israeli troops fatally shot a Palestinian and injured three more during an operation elsewhere in Nablus, the West Bank-headquartered Palestinian Authority's health ministry reported.

Alaa Zaghal, 21 "died of a bullet wound to the head fired by the occupation army in Deir Al-Hatab, east of Nablus,” it added.

Late last month, the United Nations special coordinator for "the Middle East Peace Process," Tor Wennesland, warned that "2022 is on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs began systematically tracking Palestinian fatalities in 2005.”

"Near-daily instances of violence, (are) unfolding against a backdrop of unabated Israeli settlement expansion, evictions of Palestinians, and home demolitions,” Wennesland further underlined.

The Israeli regime occupied and annexed the West Bank, including East al-Quds, in a heavily-Western-backed war of aggression in 1967.

Ever since, it has dotted the territory with hundreds of illegal settlements that have come to house hundreds of thousands of settlers that immigrated to the occupied Palestine -- mostly from Europe and the United States.