Three Jewish settlers including a senior military officer were lightly wounded at dawn Thursday at Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus City after Palestinian resistance fighters opened fire in the area a spokesperson for the Israeli occupation army said.
Following the shooting incident Magen David ambulances rushed to the Beit Furik checkpoint in the east of Nablus where paramedics were seen providing the wounded settlers with first aid before evacuating them to a hospital.
According to Haaretz website the wounded officer is regional commander Roi Zweig who was reportedly injured after the army returned fire on the gunmen.
Video footage circulated on the internet showed the settlers in a state of extreme panic while the Israeli army embarked on evacuating them from the area.
The shooting incident happened during clashes between local youths and the IOF. Such clashes happen every time soldiers and settlers storm the area to perform rituals at the mausoleum.
Earlier before hundreds of settlers poured into the site under military protection a large number of Israeli forces stormed the eastern area of Nablus where Joseph’s Tomb is located provoking skirmishes with local youths.
Local sources said that dozens of young men blocked roads in the eastern area with rocks and burning tires and confronted Israeli soldiers and their patrol vehicles by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at them.
Meanwhile the Red Crescent reported that one Palestinian was lightly wounded by a rubber bullet and over 60 others were injured from tear gas inhalation and bruises during clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers in the area.
Some of the Palestinians who were exposed to tear gas were children living in the area and were evacuated to Rafidia Hospital.
Israeli troops and settlers storm almost every week the eastern area of Nablus to perform rituals at the tomb which they think is the resting-place of the biblical patriarch Joseph while locals and Palestinian historians affirm that the grave belongs to a local medieval Muslim sheikh called Yousef al-Duwaik.
In this regard the Hamas Movement said that the shooting operation at Joseph’s Tomb today confirmed the West Bank resistance’s ability to inflict losses on the enemy impose new rules of engagement on it and make any Israeli break-ins or assaults in Palestinian areas very costly for the occupation state and its settlers.
“The trajectory of the armed resistance that stretches from Jenin to Nablus asserts that the comprehensive and open confrontation with the occupation will continue and escalate in all the cities and villages of the West Bank to foil its plots exhaust it and prevent it from achieving its goals as a prelude to liberating the entire Palestinian soil” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated in press remarks.
