BETHLEHEM, November 9, 2024 (WAFA) – Several Palestinians Saturday evening suffocated in the course of an Israeli army raid in al-Khader town, south of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that the occupation forces stormed the town, deployed at the al-Balu‘ area in the town and set up a checkpoint, stopping Palestinian-registered vehicles and inspecting passengers’ ID cards.

In the course of the raid, the gun-toting soldiers fired volleys of tear gas canisters and concussion bombs towards stores, causing several people to suffocate from excessive tear gas inhalation.

All of the suffocation cases were treated at the scene.

Meanwhile, soldiers manning the military tower at the main road near al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, stormed the camp entrance, simultaneously while firing barrages of teargas canisters towards the residents’ houses.

There was no immediate information on any casualties or ransacking houses though.

Since the onset of the genocidal aggression on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, the occupation forces have been sealing off the entrance of the refugee camp with a metal gate, denying Palestinians access to and out of it and forcing them to take lengthy alternative roads to reach their destinations.

Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement through a complex combination of over 100 fixed checkpoints, flying checkpoints, settler-only roads and various other physical obstructions.

Closures besides other measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 57-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.

K.F.