HEBRON, March 12, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli troops today quelled a solidarity rally in Ayn al-Bayda, southeast of Yatta city in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, according to WAFA correspondent.

He confirmed that dozens of Palestinians performed the weekly Friday prayer at the site of Ayn al-Bayda, also written as Ein al-Baida, nestled between the encroaching nearby Israeli colonial settlements of Ma‘on and Karmiel, in solidarity with the landowners whose land at the site is at the risk of confiscation for settlement expansion.

Among the rally participants, who shouted slogans condemning settlement construction and calling for an end to the foreign Israeli occupation, were a number of international solidarity and peace activists.

Israeli soldiers raided the site and assaulted the participants as a means to disperse them.

Ratib Jbour, an activist who took part in the rally, urged international human rights organizations to immediately intervene to stop the policy of ethnic cleansing exercised by Israel against the Palestinian people to make room for colonial settlement expansion.

Almost two weeks ago, Israeli settler bulldozers leveled large tract of farmland belonging to the Bhais, Shawahin, Zhuhur and Id‘eis families at the site of Ayn al-Bayda to enable settlers to set up livestock farms.

K.F.