Israeli forces shoot and injure 3 in Bethlehem

Israeli forces shot and injured three Palestinian protesters with live fire the central occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem on Friday, while one young man was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet in his eye and is in moderate to serious condition.

More than 500 young men and women showed up for the protest, which quickly turned into clashes with Israeli forces based behind a large garage-like door in Israel’s separation wall that hems the city. The protest, which began just after noon, lasted for more than eight hours, with demonstrators still clashing well after nightfall.

Protests in Bethlehem have taken place every day since 2 October, and have resulted in two deaths, one of which was a 13-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Israeli forces.

On Friday, the demonstration started with young men and women gathering on one of the main streets in the area in front of Israel’s separation wall. Protesters began throwing rocks at the wall, and Israeli forces immediately responded with the first shots of tear gas.

As the protest escalated young men gathered loose wood, trash cans and scrap metal, positioning the piles in the middle of the street to create makeshift barriers that protesters took cover behind on the front line of the clashes.

Other young men and women stationed themselves in a half constructed building near the separation wall, using the proximity to hurl stones and Molotov cocktails over the wall.

“That is the best position,” one young man, who, like most of the protesters wore, a checkered Palestinian scarf wrapped tightly around his head and face, said.

“Sometimes we have it and sometimes the soldiers take it, but right now we have it,” he said with a smile to his voice.

As other protesters lit tires on fire to create a smoke screen of thick billowing smoke on the main road, others in the half-constructed building dropped a Molotov cocktail on a pile of rubbish bellow, setting it ablaze.

Palestinian Authority firefighters soon responded, with every intention of putting out the fire, but protesters quickly put a stop to any attempts, screaming “go back!” at the first responders and throwing rocks at the two vehicles who quickly turned around and left the scene.

Israeli forces shot copious amounts of tear gas during the clashes, with dozens suffering from tear gas inhalation.

Medics at the scene told Middle East Eye that they’d treated more protesters for tear gas inhalation on Friday than they had on any other day since the start of October, when the daily clashes began.

As night fell, protesters carried at least a dozen tires and set them ablaze at the front line of the clashes, creating large piles of the burning rubber while yelling taunts at Israeli forces and screaming “God is great.”

The last of the demonstrators only left the streets when the rest of the tires burned out, with protesters promising they would be returning the next day.