zionist Israeli tear gas kills elderly Palestinian in West Bank

An 85-year-old Palestinian man has died after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli regime forces in the occupied West Bank.

Saeed Jaser Ali died in a hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus after a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops landed in his home in the village of Kafr Qaddum on Wednesday.

Villagers said the Israeli soldiers fired dozens of tear gas canisters at Palestinian protesters marking the 49th founding anniversary of the Fatah movement on January 1.

On December 27, dozens of Palestinian protesters were injured due to inhalation of tear gas during clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. The protesters were demonstrating against the expansion of illegal Israeli settlement units on Palestinian land.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.

Much of the international community regards the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.