NABLUS, August 2, 2016 (WAFA) – Two Palestinians were shot and injured by Israeli forces during clashes that erupted as hundreds of Israeli settlers stormed Joseph Tomb, east of Nablus, said security sources.

Protected by Israeli forces, a number of buses packed with hundreds of settlers stormed Joseph Tomb, where they performed religious rituals, triggering clashes with Palestinian locals.

Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian local youths who protested the raid and attempted to prevent settlers from storming the religious site.

Ahmad Saed, 17, from the Nablus refugee camp of Askar was hit and injured by the shrapnel of a rubber-coated steel bullet in his face.

Muhammad Shahin, 27, from the Nablus neighborhood of Khallet al-Amud was also hit and injured by rubber-coated steel bullets in his thighs and abdomen.

Both Saed and Shahin were evacuated to a Nablus-based hospital.

Settlers repeatedly break into Joseph Tomb, located in a densely Palestinian populated area in Nablus, provoking chaos and confrontation with local residents.

The site of Joseph’s Tomb is contentious. Palestinians believe the site to be the funerary monument to Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious figure, while Israeli settlers believe it to belong to the Biblical Patriarch Joseph.

K.F.