Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 Israeli Occupation Soldiers Injure Dozens of Peaceful Palestinian Marchers,

Close West Bank Roads,

Illegal Settlers Chase Farmer to Death

 

IOF quelling of peaceful marches wounds dozens

[ 07/04/2012 - 10:29 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)--

Dozens of Palestinians were wounded or suffered breathing difficulty in the Israeli occupation forces’ violent quelling of peaceful marches in a number of West Bank villages on Friday.

Three Palestinians were injured in Nabi Saleh village, near Ramallah, including a journalist while protesting the Israeli settlement activity and separation wall.

The popular committee in the village said in a statement that participants chanted slogans in support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who are on hunger strike protesting their administrative detention, without trial or charge.

They also carried Palestinian flags and when they arrived at the entrance to the village the IOF soldiers showered them with gas bombs and rubber-coated bullets in addition chemical waste material, the statement said.

It pointed out that journalist Mohammed Daghlas was hit with a teargas canister in his head and was carried to hospital, while another youth was hit with another canister in his chest, and a third young man was hit with a rubber bullet in his right hand. Many others were treated for breathing problems, it added.

IOF soldiers had stormed the village at dawn Friday and arrested a 16-year-old boy before announcing through loudspeakers in the village streets that the village and its environs were a closed military zone.

In Ma’sara, another village near Ramallah, IOF soldiers clashed with citizens and prevented their march to their land, locals said, adding that fistfights raged between the two parties.

Dozens of Palestinians and foreign activists were treated for suffocation after IOF soldiers fired tear gas bombs at them in another village near Ramallah on Friday.

Local sources in Bilin said that a 10-year-old child was treated for suffocation in that march.

In Kufr Qaddoum, IOF soldiers used force to disperse the peaceful anti wall march in the village, a local activist said.

He added that the soldiers fired teargas at the demonstrators and sprayed them with waste water, adding that three citizens were treated for breathing problems.

IOA imposes hermetic closure on West Bank

[ 07/04/2012 - 07:56 AM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

The Israeli occupation authority has imposed a hermetic closure on the West Bank on Saturday and Sunday on the occasion of the Jewish Passover.

The Yediot Ahronot website said on Friday that no traffic would be allowed in or out of the West Bank unless for humanitarian and medical conditions that the civil administrative approve.

The paper said that thousands of Israeli policemen would be deployed on roads, entertainment sites, and Jewish synagogues.

Villagers confront IOF attempt to storm their village

[ 07/04/2012 - 07:59 AM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

Citizens in Beit Uwa village, west of Al-Khalil, resisted the Israeli occupation forces’ attempt to storm their village on Friday night, locals said.

They said that IOF soldiers boosted their presence at entrance to the village and tried to storm it but were confronted by villagers who threw stones and firebombs at them.

The sources said soldiers fired sound bombs and teargas at houses and vehicles passing in the village’s main road and blocked the road leading to the nearby village of Majd.

Palestinian man chased by settlers dies after his tractor crashed

[ 07/04/2012 - 12:26 AM ]

NABLUS, (PIC) -

Fadi Zaitoun, from the village of Beita, south of Nablus, died late Thursday evening of injuries he sustained when his tractor crashed on its side as he was being chased by Jewish settlers from Yitzhar.

Eyewitnesses said that Zaitoun was on his tractor ploughing village land when settlers from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar started chasing him. As he tried to flee on his tractor, the tractor crashed on its side and he was critically injured. He was taken to Rafidya hospital in Nablus, where he succumbed to his injuries.

Yitzhar is notorious for its extremist settlers. It was a rabbi from Yitzhar who co-authored the "Handbook for the killing of Gentiles" in which he said that it was permissible to kill Palestinian children, so that they do not grow to be “terrorists like their parents.”

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation authorities declared a closure on the West Bank starting midnight Thursday till mid-night Saturday because of the Jewish Passover holiday.