Palestinians suffer tear gas inhalation in Israeli raid in northern occupied West Bank

Palestinians, including students, suffered from tear gas inhalation Monday during an Israeli raid on the town of Qabalan, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, local sources told Anadolu.

Israeli military vehicles stormed Qabalan and fired tear gas and stun grenades in the town's streets and around schools, causing suffocation among residents, including students, the sources said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that it received a report about an injured young man in Qabalan, but Israeli forces prevented ambulance crews from reaching him.

Efforts are underway to coordinate with the International Committee of the Red Cross to allow medical teams to reach the injured Palestinian, it added.

The nature of the young man's injury and its severity were not immediately clear.

The raid came shortly after the Israeli army said it had received a report about an alleged stabbing attempt in the area of the nearby Palestinian village of Osarin.

Israel's public broadcaster KAN said an occupier was injured in a stabbing attack Monday morning in the Ma'oz Yehuda illegal settlement near Osarin.

The Israeli army later claimed that a person armed with a knife stabbed the occupier and fled the scene, adding that large forces were deployed to the area.

In a later statement, the army said its forces killed the alleged attacker during the pursuit.

In a related development in occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities demolished three Palestinian homes in the town of Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem, claiming they were built without permits.

The Jerusalem Governorate, affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, said Israeli bulldozers demolished three homes belonging to the Abu Mayala family that had stood for 20 years, displacing 21 family members and turning their homes into rubble.

Israeli forces stormed the area with bulldozers in the morning and prevented the family from removing belongings from the homes before demolishing them, it said.

The governorate said the demolitions are part of a continued policy targeting the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem through home demolitions, restrictions, and measures that expose Jerusalemite families to the risk of losing their homes and being displaced.

Palestinian, Israeli, and international rights groups say Israeli authorities carry out demolitions and limit building permits granted to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem in an attempt to reduce the number of Palestinians in the city.

The groups say Israeli governments, by contrast, grant tens of thousands of building permits for illegal settlement units on city land.

Palestinians insist on East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel considers both East and West Jerusalem its capital, a position not recognized internationally.

From time to time, the occupied Palestinian territories witness shootings, stabbings, and car-ramming attacks amid occupier attacks, Israel's genocide in Gaza and its escalation in the occupied West Bank.

Around 750,000 Israeli occupiers live in 156 illegal settlements and 360 settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and carry out attacks aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians.

Since the start of Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip in 2023, Israeli army attacks and occupier terrorism in the occupied West Bank have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, injured over 12,000 and led to the arrest of around 24,000.