Clashes during march against settlement in West Bank

Clashes broke out Friday between Palestinians and the Israeli army during a march in the occupied West Bank to protest against a new illegal outpost set up by Israeli settlers.

"We came to this area to protest and say: This land is ours, not yours," Ghassan Bazour, head of the village council of Raba in the northern West Bank, told AFP.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are regularly condemned by the U.N. as illegal under international law. Outposts like the one set up in Raba overnight — consisting of tents and caravans — are illegal under Israeli law as well.

A group of men waving Palestinian flags and those of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party marched from Raba to a nearby hill where settlers had set up the outpost, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.

After performing Friday prayers at the foot of the hill, the demonstrators moved toward the outpost until Israeli soldiers arrived and dispersed them with tear gas, according to the journalist.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it provided care to 13 people who had inhaled tear gas.

Bazour said settlers had taken control of the top of the hill to set up an outpost, barring Palestinians from accessing neighboring farmland. "I call for mass marches ... to stop this aggression," Muayad Shaaban, head of the Commission Against the Wall and Settlements, which is part of the Palestinian Authority, told AFP.

Violence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has surged since the start of the war in Gaza. At least 956 Palestinians, including many fighters but also a large number of civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian Authority.

At the same time, at least 36 Israelis, including both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli data.