Two Palestinians shot in clashes
Jewish settlers have shot two Palestinian demonstrators in clashes in the West Bank, officials say.
The clashes reflected mounting tensions as Palestinians have faced off against Israeli troops in recent weeks in a series of large demonstrations protesting at Israel’s control of the territory.
Helmi Abdul-Aziz, 24, was shot in the stomach in the skirmish with settlers, Palestinian demonstrators said. They said settlers also shot 14-year-old Mustafa Hilal in the foot.
An Israeli military official confirmed that two Palestinians were shot, but said the bullets appeared to have been fired by settlers because the Israeli forces were not using live ammunition.
A Palestinian hospital official said Abdul-Aziz was in serious condition.
Villagers said the clashes began when a group of settlers encroached on their village lands and fired guns. They said settlers chased a Palestinian farmer and his family off land, prompting the farmer to call on residents to confront the settlers, and men on both sides hurled rocks at each other.
The Israeli military official said about 200 Palestinians and 25 Jewish settlers took part in the clashes, and Israeli forces dispersed Palestinian protesters using “riot dispersal means.”
Two Palestinian residents watching the clashes, Basem Nazal and Abdul-Azim Wadi, said Israeli forces fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets on demonstrators, and that a rubber bullet hit a 15-year-old Palestinian demonstrator in the eye. They also said the Israeli forces did not use live fire.
Nazal, a resident of Kusra, said groups of settlers were also uprooting their olive trees and vandalising Palestinian homes close the wildcat Jewish outpost of Eish Kodesh.
Settler leaders were not immediately available for comment on the Jewish Sabbath.
There are some 300,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, which the international community condemns. Palestinians seek the West Bank, a hilly territory which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, for part of their future state. A hardline minority of Jewish settlers frequently attack nearby Palestinian villagers and their property.
The clashes come a day after widespread demonstrations took place throughout the West Bank in support of four Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strikes in Israeli detention. Hundreds of Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere in the West Bank threw rocks at soldiers who responded with tear gas, and in Jerusalem, dozens of Palestinian worshippers threw rocks at Israeli officers at a key holy site.
