Dozens were injured on Wednesday evening as Israeli forces raided Arraba village, south of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, local sources confirmed.
They said that Israeli troops opened fire towards the villagers during confrontations that erupted in the village, causing dozens to suffocate from tear gas.
They added that the troops set up a checkpoint at the junction leading to the village, stopping Palestinian registered vehicles, interrogating passengers and checking their ID cards.
The Israeli military raided a number of Jenin-district villages and towns, including Ya‘bad, Arabbuna, Anin, Faqqu‘a and Bir al-Basha for the third day in a row, detaining residents and confiscating the recordings of surveillance cameras.
Military raids, break-ins and detentions are perceived as a form of “collective punishment” intended to force the six prisoners who escaped from a highly-fortified prison to turn themselves in.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces last night cracked down on rallies in solidarity with prisoners facing brutal mistreatment in Israeli prisons at the entrance of Burqa village, southwest of Nablus, the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, Damascus Gate, the northern entrance of Bethlehem and the northern entrance of al-Bireh city and Hebron among others.
This came after Israeli special units and soldiers cracked down on several prisons, including Ketziot’s Section 6 in the Naqab and Rimon Prison, in an attempt to disperse some 400 prisoners affiliated with Islamic Jihad and relocate them to other prisons, prompting prisoners to set seven cells on fire.
The planned relocation of the Jihad-affiliated prisoners was part of a set of punitive and repressive measures taken by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) following Monday’s escape of six prisoners, including five members of the movement, from the highly-fortified Gilboa Prison.
Other than the planned redistribution or dispersion of Jihad-affiliated prisoners, the punitive measures imposed by IPS included banning prisoners from leaving their rooms, depriving them of using facilities such as sinks, kitchens and cafeterias, in addition to banning lawyers and family visits.
This has prompted the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission to caution against sliding into “open confrontation” in prisons.
Israeli forces continue to carry out a massive manhunt to locate the escapees, yet their whereabouts remain unknown.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency