RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL

At least 15 Palestinians were injured on Friday when the Israeli army fired live bullets and tear gas shells at a peaceful protest in Tulkarm, northern occupied West Bank, against the construction of a new illegal settlement outpost east of the city.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its teams treated 15 people injured during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian demonstrators in the town of Beit Lid, east of Tulkarm, who threw stones in response to live bullets and tear gas.

The statement said that one person was injured by live fire, another by rubber-coated metal bullets, and 12 people suffocated from tear gas.

According to an Anadolu correspondent who spoke with eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers attacked the protest in Beit Lid and Kafr Qaddum, firing bullets and tear gas to disperse the participants.

Witnesses said the army chased activists and supporters through nearby agricultural fields after they held Friday prayers near the settlement outpost.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, the municipalities of Kafr Qaddum and Beit Lid, the Fatah movement, and several resistance factions and popular committees had called for a prayer gathering on the lands of the Al-Duweir area in Beit Lid to oppose illegal Israeli settlers' attempts to establish a new outpost on neighboring Kafr Qaddum lands.

Meanwhile, Palestinian activists documented a group of illegal settlers vandalizing olive trees in the Susiya area of Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.

A video seen by Anadolu showed illegal Israeli settlers breaking and damaging the trees.

Authorities said that more than 1,068 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, 10,000 wounded, and more than 20,000 arrested, including 1,600 children, since the Israeli onslaught in the Gaza Strip began two years ago.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.