Last Update: 14/04/2004 20:50

12 protesters hurt during protest against West Bank fence

By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and AP



Some 12 people were wounded Wednesday during during clashes between Border Police officers and protesters demonstrating against the West Bank separation fence under construction between the villages of Biddu and Beit Ajaza, west of Jerusalem.




Security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.

Ten Palestinians were hurt, including a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was seriously injured after being hit in the head by a rubber-coated bullet.

Two Israeli protesters were also lightly hurt in their legs.

There are almost daily protests near this section of the fence, which is close to the Israeli town of Mevasseret Zion. Hundreds of Biddu residents, as well as five to ten members of the Anarchists Against the Wall groups and foreign left-wing protesters participate in the demonstrations.

On February 26, three Palestinians were killed and more than 50 injured during clashes with IDF troops near Biddu.

Also Wednesday, some 3,000 Palestinians, including 400 gunmen, attended a rally in Gaza City calling for the release of jailed Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and the other Palestinian prisoners.

One Palestinian, identified as Ali Amar, 22, was killed when he was shot in the head by gunmen firing in the air, hospital officials said.

Barghouti, the highest ranking Palestinian captured by Israel, has been charged with being involved in attacks that killed 26 Israelis. The rally came in the run-up to the day Palestinians mark in solidarity with their prisoners in Israeli jails.

Earlier in the day, about 3,000 Palestinian laborers refused to cross into the Erez industrial zone along the boundary between Gaza and Israel for the second day.

Workers say they were protesting what they called humiliating security checks, especially body searches.

IDF troops also blew up a house in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday that belonged to the family of Sabih Abu Saud, a suicide bomber who blew himself up in a West Bank village last November as the army hunted him down.