Israeli forces injure journalists covering protests

GAZA, Palestine

Israeli forces injured three journalists as they were covering protests in Jerusalem and Gaza on Friday, according to the Journalist Support Committee (JSC) in Palestine.

They attacked AP photographer Iyad Hamad, who was covering protests in the Wadi al-Hummus area of Jerusalem, breaking his foot, said Saleh al-Masri, a representative of the committee.

Local reporter Osama Al-Kahlut was shot in the foot with a live bullet and Hatem Omar, working for China’s Xinhua news agency, was injured by a rubber bullet, al-Masri said.

A total of 49 people were injured by Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Friday, he said.

Since the Gaza rallies began in March last year, two journalists have been killed and 353 others injured by Israeli forces, the JSC official said.

Palestinians on Friday converged near a security fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel to demonstrate against Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories.

Gaza’s National Authority for Return and Breaking the Siege (NARBS), which organizes weekly rallies, called on Palestinians to attend the demonstration and affirm their right to return to their villages in historical Palestine.

NARBS dubbed the Friday rallies as "the massacre of Wadi al-Hummus" in reference to the demolition of Palestinian buildings in the area.

In mid-July, bulldozers accompanied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers moved into the neighborhood of Wadi Homs in East Jerusalem and began razing several buildings in the area.

Since the Gaza rallies began in March last year, nearly 270 protesters have been martyred and thousands more wounded by Israeli troops deployed near the buffer zone.

Demonstrators demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has shattered the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic amenities.