By Qais Abu Samra
RAMALLAH
Scores of Palestinians suffered temporary asphyxiation on Thursday after Israeli forces used teargas to break up a demonstration staged in the West Bank city of Ramallah, eyewitnesses have said.
Israeli forces fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse stone-throwing Palestinians who had been protesting near a military checkpoint close to the town of Birzeit, eyewitnesses said.
Tension has run high in the West Bank since Israel closed East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound last week after an extremist Jewish rabbi was injured in a shooting in West Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities reopened the Al-Aqsa on Friday following a day of violent clashes with Palestinian protesters, but barred male Muslim worshippers under 50 years old from entering the site.
Last week's closure of Al-Aqsa, along with the killing of a young Palestinian man suspected of shooting the rabbi, fueled angry protests by Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
On Wednesday, an Israeli police officer was killed when a Palestinian driver ran over a group of Israeli pedestrians in East Jerusalem. A second Israeli later died of his injuries at hospital, while 14 others were injured in the incident.
The Palestinian motorist who ran them over, meanwhile, was shot and killed by Israeli police in the immediate wake of the attack.
In a subsequent incident on Wednesday, three Israeli soldiers were injured when a Palestinian van plowed into them near the Al-Aroub refugee camp in the West Bank city of Hebron.
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