Soldiers and Settlers Wreak Havoc in Bethlehem and Ramallah Districts

A soccer match between two local teams was suspended on Friday, after Israeli soldiers fired teargas canisters into Al-Khader Stadium, to the south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

Sa’di Hmeidan, a local sports official, told WAFA that Israeli soldiers fired teargas canisters inside the stadium, during a match between the soccer teams of Al-Abidia and Doha villages, as part of a youth football league. He said that some of the players suffocated from the teargas, causing the match to be suspended.

The match was resumed in about an hour.

Israeli occupation forces, on Friday, also detained five Palestinian teenagers during clashes in the village of Taqou, to the southeast of Bethlehem, local sources said.

Tayseer Abu Mfarreh, director of Taqou municipality, said that confrontations erupted between protesters and Israeli forces, at the entrance to the village, adding that the soldiers attacked the protesters with rubber-coated steel bullets and teargas before abducting five of them.

Israeli settlers, on Friday, uprooted and chopped 20 Palestinian-owned olive trees near the village of al-Mughayer, northeast of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, a local activist reported.

Faraj Na’san, former head of al-Mughayer village council, said that Jewish settlers from neighboring illegal settlements uprooted and chopped the olive trees belonging to the Na’san family, noting that the trees were there for over 30 years.

He said that the act of uprooting olive trees has been frequent in that area, as part of a plan to make life difficult for Palestinians, in order to get them to leave and expand their settlements, built illegally on Palestinian lands.

Settler violence, against Palestinians and their property, is routine in the West Bank, and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.