QALQILIA, June 16, 2017 (WAFA) – At least ten Palestinians Friday suffocated by tear gas as Israeli forces suppressed the weekly and peaceful anti-settlement rally in the village of Kufr Qadoom to the east of Qalqilia.
Coordinator of the popular resistance committee in the village, Murad Ishtawi, said Israeli forces violently suppressed demonstrators, who also rallied to protest Israel’s closure of the main road that connects the village of Kufr Qadoom with the city of Nablus since 2003, spurring clashes between them.
Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas canisters toward the rally to disperse it, causing at least 10 people to suffocate due to tear gas inhalation.
They were all treated at the scene.
“Before 2003, the residents of Kufr Qaddum would use a shorter road to the east in order to come and go to nearby cities and villages. However, as the settlements expanded so that they overwhelmed the road, it became closed for Palestinian use, said Addameer Human rights Association
The only alternative road is roughly six times longer than the previous route, disrupting the villagers’ ability to attend university, their jobs, and other vital aspects of their economic and social wellbeing, noted Addameer.
“Three Palestinian deaths relating to the road’s closure occurred between 2004 and 2005,” it said.
Although Kufr Qaddum’s Popular Resistance Committee took their case to the Israeli High Court in 2003, the legal status of the road remains unchanged, stressed Addameer. After all legal appeals failed, villagers decided to organize weekly demonstrations in July 2011, a step that was met with violent suppression by Israeli forces.
To be noted, an increasing number of unarmed and peaceful Palestinians were either killed or seriously injured as a result of Israel’s constant use of tear gas against Palestinians.
B‘Tselem, the Israeli human rights information center, stated that “[Israeli] soldiers and Border Police often fire tear-gas grenades directly at demonstrators with the aim of hitting them, or fire carelessly, without ensuring that demonstrators are not in the direct line of fire, in direct contravention of regulations.”
T.R.
