ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES INJURE 16 PALESTINIAN IN WEST BANK
West Bank, 1 Rabiul Akhir 1435/1 February 2014 (MINA) – The Israeli occupation forces have injured 16 Palestinian demonstrators protesting against the killing of a teenager by the regime soldiers.
The soldiers shot live rounds against hundreds of Palestinians holding the protest on the outskirts of the Jalazun refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday, Press TV quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
Some of the protesters were taken to hospital, with one in critical condition. The demonstration was called against the killing of 19-year-old Mohammad Mubarak from Jalazun, who was shot by Israeli forces near an illegal Israeli settlement outside Ramallah on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, five Palestinians were shot and injured in central Gaza by the Israeli forces gunfire. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 27 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli soldiers in the West Bank in 2013.
Also on Friday, around 300 Palestinians, along with some Israeli activists, occupied some abandoned houses near the city of Jericho, also known as Ariha, in the West Bank.
The protest was staged against the repeated refusal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismantle illegal settlements and agree to a pullout from the Jordan Valley.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.
The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands. (T/P04/E01).
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
