(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Israeli forces on Saturday suppressed a Palestinian march protesting Israeli plans to turn a southern West Bank church compound into a settlement outpost, as well as other Israeli "crimes," locals said.
Rateb al-Jbour, a coordinator for popular committees in southern Hebron, said that Israeli forces suppressed the march near al-Arrub refugee camp while it was making its way from the town of Beit Ummar towards the church compound, known as Beit al-Baraka.
The 38-dunam compound has been in the spotlight since Israeli media
reported in May that in 2012 the site was secretly purchased by an American millionaire, Irving Moskowitz, with the intention of turning it into a settlement outpost, Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported .
Jbour said that as the march approached the main entrance of al-Arrub college, Israeli soldiers assaulted protesters with the butts of their rifles, leaving several of them bruised.
He said that in addition to the sale of the church compound, the protest sought to condemn "settlers' attacks and terrorism against Palestinians." He pointed in particular to 30-year-old Saad Dawashba, who on Saturday succumbed to wounds sustained during a settler attack on his home in the northern West Bank town of Duma that also killed his 18-month-old son.
Al-Jbour said that members of local popular committees, in addition to other local and foreign activists, took part in the march, raising Palestinian flags and chanting slogans against the Israeli occupation and the confiscation of Palestinian land.
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