***image2***Eight Palestinians were injured yesterday during clashes between demonstrators and Israeli occupation forces yesterday at the weekly demonstration in the West Bank town of Bil’in.
After violently dispersing the demonstration with clubs, tear-gas, rubber bullets and experimental weapons, Israeli occupation fighters pursued demonstrators into the village and went from house to house searching for them.
The demonstration began after Friday prayers when around one hundred demonstrators marched from the Mosque in the centre of the village towards the Apartheid wall built on Bil’in land.
Demonstrators carried Palestinian flags and chanted slogans against the wall and the settlements, and called to free Palestinian prisoners in Occupation prisoners and to end the occupation.
Demonstrators were met at the edge of the village by occupation forces who had been lying in wait. The Palestinians were ordered to disperse and when they failed to do the Israeli fighters attacked. Violent clashes ensued as the Israeli fighters used clubs and the butts of their guns to disperse Palestinians. Dozens suffered serious bruising. The soldiers then opened fire with tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets, electric shock guns and special glass bullets full of corrosive liquid that burns the skin. Clouds of tear gas drifted into nearby homes of people who had not taken part in the demonstration.
When Israeli forces entered the village to search for demonstrators, young people erected a barricade of large blocks in the street to stop them, and pelted them with stones.
The clashes ended at around six o’clock in the evening.
It is standard practice for the Israeli military to designate areas around Palestinian towns close to the wall as ‘closed military zones’, in which they have free reign to assault Palestinians.
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