Dozens of Palestinians injured in West Bank amid Israeli settler march

Dozens of Palestinian protesters were injured by rubber bullets and tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers near Nablus on Tuesday, paramedics in the West Bank said.

At least eight were treated at the scene, close to the village of Burqa.

Violence broke out after several thousand Israeli extremist settlers and their families held a march calling for a settlement to be rebuilt.

Homesh was dismantled in 2005 under the agreement to end Israel’s occupation of Gaza.

Palestinians holding a counter-demonstration blocked roads with burning tyres.

The Israeli army had been deployed to keep roads open to enable the march to go ahead.

The 14-kilometre march ended at the site of the former settlement, having bypassed bypassing several Palestinian villages, the Times of Israel reported.

Speeches were made and former Israeli politician Idit Silman, who quit the government this month on religious grounds, was there.

The Israeli military did not formally authorise the march, which was held at a time of heightened tension and violence around Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque.

Israeli riot police drew widespread international condemnation after entering the mosque’s grounds twice in the past few days and using tear gas and rubber bullets.

Fourteen people, including two Ukrainians and 26 Palestinians, have died in violence in Israel in the past few weeks.

The country captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. In the decades since, it has built dozens of settlements.

They house more than 500,000 Israelis in proximity to about three million Palestinians. The Palestinians seek the territory as the heartland of a future independent state.

Homesh was built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and was dismantled in 2005. In the years since, Israeli settlers have staged several marches, rallies and attempts to rebuild it, in contravention of military orders and Israeli law.

The area has been the scene of frequent violence by settlers and Palestinians in recent months. In December, Palestinian militants killed a Jewish settler near the site of the former settlement, and a month earlier six farmers were admitted to hospital after settlers attacked them with stones and metal batons.