CAIRO, May 12. /TASS/. At least 245 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli border police along the borderline between the West Bank and Israel, Palestine’s Al Quds newspaper said in its online edition on Tuesday night.
"A total of 245 people were injured by shots fired by occupants in various directions of the West Bank," the paper quoted a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society as saying.
According to the paper, most violent clashes were reported at border checkpoints near the cities of Jericho, Hebron and Jenin. A number of Arabs were detained by Israeli law enforcement officers in the area.
Earlier, Palestine’s WAFA news agency informed that one Palestinian young man was shot dead and another seriously injured by Israeli forces at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus.
According to Palestine’s Saut Al-Aqsa radio, fierce clashes between Arabs and Israeli police were taking place in other Israeli cities as well.
In turn, the Beirut-based Pan-Arab Al Mayadeen TV reported that Arab residents of cities and towns in northern Israel took to the streets in support of protests that are taking place in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
A large-scale rally in Umm al-Fahm led to clashes with police. Rubber bullets and tear gas were used against the crowd, and injuries were reported.
In Acre and Baqa al-Gharbiyye (Israel’s Haifa district), Arab residents clashed with Jewish settlers. In a separate development, the mayor of Lod, a city 15 km southeast of Tel Aviv in the Central District of Israel, requested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deploy military units in the area because the situation "is spinning out of control." According to Al Mayadeen, as protests erupted in the city, crowds of Arab teenagers started to set cars of Israeli residents on fire. An attempt to set fire to a synagogue was also reported in Lod.
The unrest in Arab districts of Israel is gaining momentum amid the exchange of missile strikes between Israel and Palestinian radicals from the Gaza Strip.
Situation in East Jerusalem
At least 15 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli law enforcement officers in East Jerusalem, Palestine’s WAFA news agency reported on Wednesday.
"Fifteen civilians were injured in clashes with Israeli occupational forces on the outskirts of the Old City [Jerusalem]. Among them are four people wounded by rubber bullets and one person brutally beaten in an attack," the agency quoted a Palestinian Red Crescent Society spokesperson as saying.
Renewed fierce clashes between Israelis and Palestinians broke out in East Jerusalem on Tuesday night, Palestinian media reported.
Earlier, Palestine’s Dunya Al Watan radio said police had stormed courtyards of the Al Aqsa Mosque, pushing worshippers out of the building. They used rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. According to WAFA, the majority of visitors came to Al Aqsa for an obligatory night prayer during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, at least 612 Palestinians were injured in clashes that erupted near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and Old City on Monday.
An exchange of missile strikes between Israel and Palestinian radicals from the Gaza Strip followed an outburst of unrest near the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City in early May. More than 700 people have been hurt in riots in recent days. Clashes between the Palestinians and the Israeli police were triggered by an Israeli court ruling to seize dwelling houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood from Arab families who have been living there for more than 50 years in favor of Jewish resettlers who had reportedly owned these buildings before 1948. The houses allocated by Jordan as the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem are located some 500 meters from Al-Aqsa.