Ramallah: At least 100 Palestinian protesters were injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, medics and witnesses said Thursday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that clashes took place in the villages of Beita and Huwara near Nablus, reports Xinhua news agency.
The statement added that 10 people were shot, including nine with rubber-coated metal bullets, and 90 others suffered suffocation after inhaling teargas fired by the soldiers to disperse the protesters.
Witnesses in the two villages told Xinhua that dozens of Palestinian protesters took to the streets, burned tires and threw stones at Israeli soldiers who fired teargas and gunshots to disperse them.
They added that the protests broke out in Beita, Huwara and other areas in the West Bank against the tightened measures that had been taken against thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.
Palestinian and Israeli media reported that Israeli police and security forces tightened security measures against Palestinian prisoners in several Israeli jails following the escape of six prisoners from a prison Monday.
Storming Palestinian prisoners in several Israeli jails outraged the Palestinian factions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who called for intensive protests and demonstrations against Israel.
The Israeli prisons service “committed a heinous attack on Palestinian prisoners in several Israeli jails”, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs in Palestine Liberation Organization said in a press statement.
It added that Israeli prisons guards and special units’ soldiers armed with weapons, clubs, teargas and police dogs stormed the Kitzeot jail in southern Israel and had brutally attacked the prisoners.
“Continuing the escalation in this way means a real war inside the prisons,” the statement said.
In Gaza, the Islamic Resistance Movement and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned Israel that attacking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails will lead to a serious repercussion against Israel all over the Palestinian territories.
IANS