4 Days of Clashes in Aida Camp, After Activists Break through Wall

Ma’an News, 3/25/14 – Monday marked the fourth day in a row of clashes between residents of Aida camp and Israeli forces, after Palestinian activists tore through the separation wall that surrounds the camp.

Local popular committee member Munthir Amira told Ma’an that Israeli special forces raided the Bethlehem-area refugee camp on Monday evening and detained 24-year-old Muatasim Basim Abu Khdeir.

A number of Israeli soldiers gathered in the area of Aida’s Key of Return, Amira said. Troops were also stationed on residents’ rooftops, using them as military posts during clashes with Palestinians in the area.

The raid came the same day Israeli forces reinstalled a section of the separation wall that had been destroyed by Palestinians in Aida camp days before on Thursday.

Eight Palestinian youths were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets on Sunday during the clashes, medics told Ma’an.

Israeli forces also opened fire on the car of Associated Press photographer Iyad Hamad as he was covering the clashes.

Also Sunday, witnesses in the camp said that two Israeli border policemen were injured after Palestinians threw bricks at them from a rooftop near a school in the camp.

Aida camp is a frequent site of clashes because it is located beside Rachel’s Tomb, which is surrounded on three sides by the Israeli separation wall despite being in the middle of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

Israeli forces shot more than 20 youths with rubber-coated steel bullets and live bullets during clashes that occurred almost daily in December and January, and clashes continue to break out occasionally in the area.

There are 19 refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, within which live about a quarter of the 771,000 registered refugees in the territory.

More than 760,000 Palestinians — estimated today to number 4.8 million with their descendants — were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

Posted by Philip Giraldi on Mar 25 2014 . Filed under News from the Middle East . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . Both comments and pings are currently closed.