ISRAELI FORCES DECLARE NABI SALEH ‘MILITARY ZONE’
The attack by Israeli forces comes a day after Israeli forces detained five — including two Palestinian women and three foreign journalists — and lightly injured a French journalist during a protest in the village, which has held weekly protests for four years against Israeli confiscation of village lands, according to Ma’an News Agency report quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
Israeli forces arrived “suddenly” on Saturday to close the village entrances and then targeted locals nearby, shooting a young man with a live bullet and injuring a 45-year-old woman after beating her, local popular resistance group “Intifada” said in a statement.
The woman was identified as Wijdan al-Tamimi, while the injured young man was not identified.
After declaring the area a “closed military zone,” Israeli forces shut the main streets of the village, closing an iron gate on the main road and placing boulders on other roads so as to prevent Palestinian traffic.
Additionally, they fired stun grenades into the village’s streets, damaging a number of cars, the group said.
The group said that the attack was part of an escalation in military violence against the village in recent months.
The village is the site of weekly protests against the Israeli occupation, with residents demanding that lands confiscated by Israeli forces to build a settlement be returned to them.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that “as a result of a violent riot” on Saturday afternoon, “one of the two gates of Nabi Saleh was temporarily closed.”
(T/Fauziah/P03/E01).
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
