Israeli forces Thursday evening injured two Palestinians, including a journalist, in confrontations in the West Bank cities of Hebron and Jenin, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that confrontations flared up with Israeli forces at the entrance of al-Shuhada Street, which has been closed since 1994, as Palestinians took to the streets in solidarity with prisoners facing brutal Israeli mistreatment in Israeli prisons.
The soldiers opened fire towards protestors as well as towards local stores, hitting a journalist who was covering the events by a concussion bomb in his foot.
The journalist was rushed to Hebron Government Hospital for treatment.
Meanwhile, similar confrontations erupted with Israeli forces at al-Jalama checkpoint, north of the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
The soldiers opened gunfire towards local protestors, injuring one by a rubber-coated steel bullet in the foot.
The casualty, identified as a resident of Jenin refugee camp, was rushed to a hospital.
This came as the Israeli military continued to raid a number of Jenin-district villages and towns for the fourth day in a row, detaining residents and confiscating the recordings of surveillance cameras, as part of the massive manhunt for the six prisoners who managed to escape from the highly-fortified Gilboa Prison on Monday. The escapees’ whereabouts remain unknown.
Palestinians have slammed such raids and detentions as a form of “collective punishment” intended to force the six escapees to turn themselves in.
Palestinians organized rallies in solidarity with other prisoners in Israeli jails after the Israeli special units and soldiers cracked down on several prisons 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 the six prisoners.
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.
Reports have surfaced of beatings, torture, the use of additional restraints, confiscations, and other abuses by Israeli wardens against defenseless prisoners.
This has prompted the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission to caution against sliding into “open confrontation” in prisons.
Source: Palestinian News & info Agency