More than 70 Palestinians were injured late Monday as Israeli soldiers raided a funeral in East Jerusalem.
The rioting erupted as Palestinians buried Walid Al-Sharif, 23, who died on Saturday from injuries sustained during fighting last month at Jerusalem’s sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
The violence expanded to the West Bank, with Israeli troops detaining 16 Palestinians in the West Bank and an additional 35 in East Jerusalem.
The raid on Al-burial Sharif’s was comparable to Israeli police’s savage onslaught on the May 14 funeral of Al-Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was tragically shot by Israeli forces without provocation on May 11.
Meanwhile, scores of students and residents were injured after breathing tear gas during skirmishes with the Israeli forces in the Al-Aroub refugee camp, north of Hebron. The violence erupted when school kids marched in commemoration of a Palestinian murdered by Israeli forces. The injured were cared for on the spot.
Clashes also erupted in the south of Hebron, near the Ibrahimi Mosque, between school children and Israeli forces. Palestinian teenagers threw stones at Israeli troops, who fired tear gas canisters at the youngsters, injuring many.
Israeli sources said the Israeli army is considering using combat helicopters during its operations in the occupied West Bank. This escalation follows the killing of an Israeli officer from a special unit during an armed clash with Palestinian resistance fighters in Jenin on May 14.
Benny Gantz, the Israeli defense minister, said during his speech at a conference at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel, that the recent Palestinian attacks in Israel are interlinked and inspired by the incitement from organizations in the region. “This incitement does not receive sufficient condemnation from the world and the leaders of the region.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday that his directives are clear about targeting Palestinian militants “wherever they are, and with all kinds of weapons.”
He added: “We fully support the army and police in their efforts to target any militant, whether in Jerusalem, the West Bank, or anywhere else in the country, who raises his hand on any settler or soldier from the army.”
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassim said Bennett, by allowing his army to target Palestinians with all means, has shown that “he intends to use the systematic terrorist policy in dealing with our people.”
According to Qassim, these words reveal how the occupying forces want to expand their aggression, implying that Hamas would respond to the occupation by escalating acts of resistance in all forms and continuing the revolution in all areas of struggle.
Meanwhile, Bennett praised a recent decision to build Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians and the majority of the international community regard as illegal.
During a visit to the Elkana settlement, Netanyahu portrayed settlement development as a response to recent Palestinian violence.
The majority of the international world, including the White House, sees settlements as a barrier to peace because they diminish and split land where an independent Palestinian state would be built.
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