Many injured as zionist forces attack anti-settlement protesters in northwestern West Bank

The protest was held in the village of Kafr Qaddoum, east of the city of Qalqilya on Friday, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported, citing local sources.

The casualties were caused after the troops started striking the protesters with rubber-coated steel bullets and teargas canisters, ignoring the peaceful nature of their march.

“Dozens of others were treated at the scene from teargas suffocation,” Wafa added.

Israel occupied the West Bank, including East al-Quds, in 1967 during a heavily-Western-backed war against regional Arab territories.

Ever since it has been dotting the territory with hundreds of illegal settlements that have come to house more than 700,000 Israeli settlers.

This is while Palestinians want the West Bank to serve as part of a future independent state with East al-Quds as its capital.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The United Nations Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities through several resolutions.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks foundered in 2014 on several major sticking points, including Tel Aviv’s refusal to keep up a moratorium on its illegal settlement expansion.