NABLUS, Saturday, May 15, 2021 (WAFA) – Clashes continued today as Israeli forces attacked Palestinian protesters in various areas throughout the West Bank, according to local sources.
At least 12 Palestinian protesters, including a minor, were shot and injured with Israeli forces’ live ammunition, including two critical injuries to the abdomen and chest, during clashes that broke out in Qusra village, south of the northern occupied West Bank governorate of Nablus, according to local activist Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors the Israeli colonial settlement activities in the north of the West Bank.
Meanwhile, in the towns of Baita and Osrin to the south of Nablus a number of Palestinians, including an 80-year-old man suffocated as Israeli forces attacked protesters with tear gas canisters. They were treated at the scene.
Clashes were also witnessed at Huwwara military checkpoint to the south of Nablus. Medical sources said that two people with live bullet wounds to the foot were transferred to Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus. At least thirty others were treated at the scene from gas inhalation.
Clashes were also reported at the northern entrance to al-Bireh city near Ramallah, leaving at least 13 Palestinians injured with rubber-coated steel bullets.
A youth was also shot and injured with a live bullet to the head. According to the ministry of health, the youth arrived at Palestine Medical Complex (PMC) in Ramallah in a very critical condition.
Another youth was admitted into the hospital with a critical bullet wound in the waist area.
Forces also attacked a demonstration to the east of Tubas with live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, and stun grenades. No injuries were reported.
Three Palestinians were also shot and injured with live ammunition, and five others with rubber-coated steel bullets, during clashes that broke out near the northern entrance to Qalqilia city. Dozens were also treated for gas inhalation.
In Tulkarem, two youth were shot and injured in clashes that broke out near Israel’s apartheid wall that runs through the town of Qaffin.
Forces fired live, and rubber-coated steel bullets as well as tear gas canisters towards protesters, shooting and injuring two youth.
One of the youth was shot with a live bullet in his lower extremities which necessitated his transfer to hospital, while the other youth was struck in the head with a rubber-coated bullet and was treated at the scene. Their condition was described as moderate.
The clashes erupted in protest against the Israeli occupation’s ongoing onslaught on Gaza and to mark the 73rd anniversary of the Palestinian dispersion and expulsion from their homes and land in Palestine on May 15, 1948 in what is now known as the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The Nakba resulted in the displacement of 800,000 Palestinians out of the 1.4 million Palestinians who lived in historical Palestine in 1948 in 1,300 villages and towns. The majority of the displaced Palestinians ended up in neighboring Arab countries and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and other countries in the world. Furthermore, thousands of Palestinians – who stayed in the area controlled by the Israeli occupation in 1948 – were driven out of their homes and lands, which were seized by the occupation.