SALFIT, Friday, February 12, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers today assaulted an anti-land-grab rally to the west of Bidyya town, west of Salfit city, according to local sources.

They confirmed that a group of settlers attacked Palestinians taking part in a rally in Khallet Hassan, located on the outskirts of the village which has been facing an imminent threat of confiscation for the benefit of the colonial Israeli settlement project.

Israeli soldiers intervened to provide protection to the assailants, who briefly held a participant who was documenting the settler attack.

The Israeli occupation authorities plan to seize thousands of donums of land belonging to five villages located to the west of Salfit and south of Qalqilia to make room for the construction of a new colonial settlement.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops suppressed a rally that was called for to defend Palestinian land in al-Marhat and al-Ras area, west of Salfit city, against confiscation.

The soldiers opened fire towards the rally participants, directly hitting one with a tear gas canister in the head and causing dozens others to suffocate from tear gas.

The casualty was rushed to a hospital in the city for urgent treatment.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across the West Bank in violation of international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention which expressly bans the relocation of the occupying nation's civilian population to the land of the occupied.

Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights following the 1967 war, and has since built hundreds of illegal Jewish-only settlements throughout the occupied territories.

Israel’s nation-state law states that building and strengthening the settlements is a “national interest.”