OCHA: More than 70 children among 568 Palestinians injured by Israel forces in two weeks

Israeli occupation forces injured 568 Palestinians, including 73 children, across the West Bank between 7 and 20 September, according to the biweekly Protection of Civilians report published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Of those, 320 were injured during ongoing protests against settlement activities in the Nablus governorate, including 290 injuries near the villages of Beita and 30 in Beit Dajan.

In the ongoing Beita protests, a 28-year old man and a father of an eight-month-old baby were shot in the head and killed by an Israeli army sniper, raising the total number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation forces since August in the anti-settlement Beita protests to eight.

Overall, said the OCHA report, six of the wounded Palestinians in the abovementioned total were shot with live ammunition, 138 were hit by rubber bullets, three were physically assaulted or hit by a tear gas canister, and the rest were treated for tear gas inhalation.

In addition to the 568 people who were injured directly by Israeli forces, 46 Palestinians were injured either while running away from Israeli forces or in circumstances that could not be verified in Beita and Nablus city.

Of the abovementioned injuries, said OCHA, over 55 pupils and teachers were teargassed by Israeli forces in six schools. In the Israeli-controlled H2 area of Hebron city, Israeli forces shot tear gas canisters at a nearby school compound; six students and 46 teachers were treated for tear gas inhalation and the three schools were evacuated due to the intensity of the gas.

In another incident where clashes were reported in Anata town, northeast of Jerusalem, Israeli forces also fired tear gas canisters into the yards of one school; two girls and one teacher were taken to hospital, and classes were suspended for the remainder of the day, affecting over 500 pupils.

Israeli forces carried out 90 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 99 Palestinians across the West Bank during the reporting period, said OCHA. Most of the operations took place in the Hebron and Bethlehem governorates.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers injured a Palestinian boy and vandalized trees and damaged houses and vehicles across the West Bank during the two-week reporting period, said the UN organization. The boy, aged 16, was physically assaulted in the H2 area of Hebron.

Source : Safa