TULKARM, Monday, January 11, 2021 (WAFA) – Six Palestinian workers attempting to reach their workplaces inside Israel were shot and injured this morning by Israeli army gunfire at a gate in the apartheid barrier separating the West Bank from Israel near the village of Faroun, south of the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm, according to local sources and the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry said that six Palestinians were brought to hospital in Tulkarm with gun wounds to the leg. Their injuries were reported to be light, but the hospital director said two of the injuries suffer from broken bones and need medical attention.

Local sources said the soldiers opened fire at the workers near the gate where they gathered in an effort to cross the barrier and reach their workplaces inside Israel, injuring six, all said to be in their 20s.

Israel started building the barrier, most of it a concrete wall, in 2002 to separate the West Bank from Israel even though a large part of it was built deep inside the occupied territories and on Palestinian agricultural land.

In 2003, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that stated the wall contradicts international law and should be removed. The International Court of Justice also issued in July 2004 an advisory opinion stating that the barrier is a violation of international law and should be removed.

M.K.