According to the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC), an Israeli military sniper used live fire against protesters during the weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh today, injuring one. The protester, who was shot in the thigh, was evacuated to a nearby hospital. The army reportedly used a 0.22″ ammunition, which is forbidden from being used as crowd control.
Injured protester in Nabi Saleh (photo: flickr/Activestills)
The use of the Ruger rifle, which shoots the 0.22″ munition, was banned in 2001. The prohibition on using the Ruger for crowd control came after numerous Palestinian protesters , including children, were killed by the weapon. The Ruger is used as a sniper.
Today’s shooting comes two weeks after an Israeli soldier shot Palestinian protester Mustafa Tamimi in the face with a tear gas canister at close range, an action which violated military protocol on the firing of tear gas. Tamimi died the following morning from the injury.
In another violation of Israeli military regulations, soldiers fired tear gas directly at a Palestinian journalist, striking the man in the leg.
As they have every Friday for the past two years, protesters at Nabi Saleh were attempting to reach the village’s spring, which has been appropriated by the nearby Jewish settlement of Halamish.
Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war – the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and the massive retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing violence.
We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’ murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians.
This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized siege on Gaza.
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