Nablus _ Palestine News Network
Seven Palestinian civilians were injured in clashes with Israeli troops in the eastern city of Nablus early Wednesday, medical sources said.
The Palestinian "Red Crescent" said in the city that its crews had provided treatment to seven Palestinian youths, including two with rubber bullets, one of whom had been injured in the Ras area and had been given treatment on the ground.
In a statement, the Israeli occupation army prevented medical crews from reaching the house of an elderly woman who was suffocated by the firing of tear gas, he said.
The clashes erupted after more than 1,000 settlers stormed the shrine of the Islamic Tomb of Yusuf, east of Nablus city, and performed Talmudic and biblical rituals, amid heightened protection by the Israeli occupation army.
Our correspondent said that the occupation forces raided the area of "Balata al-Balad " East of Nablus, with foot and military mechanisms, closed the perimeter of the area and prevented the movement of citizens, in order to provide protection to settlers who stormed the "Tomb of Yusuf".
He reported that Israeli buses had reduced hundreds of settlers to the area, amid heightened protection by the occupying forces, who had secured them into the Islamic site.
According to the Hebrew Channel 7, Israeli forces protected some 1,000 settlers who had reached the "tomb of Yusuf" in Nablus to perform religious rituals.
The incursion was accompanied by the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails by Palestinians, and two hand grenades were found inside the shrine, which were defused by Israeli army explosives experts, she said.
It noted that the Israeli occupation forces had arrested a young Palestinian during these confrontations and had been transferred to the competent authorities for interrogation.
The settlers repeatedly stormed the tomb of Yusuf, formerly an Islamic mosque, in which the mausoleum of Sheikh Musallam, Yusuf Dweikat, was from his own town, "Balata", before the occupation authorities controlled him and turned him into a sacred Jewish site after the occupation of the West Bank in the aftermath of the 1967 war.
The Maqam east of Nablus is a hotbed of tension in the region, in the light of the continued presence of settlers and occupying forces in the area and the constant harassment and provocation of the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods of the neighbourhood.
