Palestinians injured as Israel attacks pro-prisoner rallies

Israeli forces attacked rallies held in the West Bank in support of Palestinian prisoners, who have come under Tel Aviv’s crackdown following a recent successful jailbreak by six of the inmates.

“One hundred Palestinians have been injured in clashes with the Israeli military in the districts of Beita and Huwara near the city of Nablus in the West Bank,” the organization stated on late Wednesday.

On Wednesday, all Palestinian movements and groups called for clashes with the Israeli military to support Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Israeli forces Wednesday overnight detained relatives of the Palestinian prisoners on the run after their brazen escape from a high-security jail, according to the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS). According to Palestinian media outlets, the Israeli forces raided the homes of the escaped prisoners and began to arrest their relatives. Clashes erupted between the Palestinian youth and Israeli troops after the invasion.

A former commander of the Palestinian resistance group Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in Jenin and five members of the Islamic Jihad group managed to tunnel their way out through their cell’s drainage system to escape from the maximum-security jail in the predawn hours of Monday.

It was the biggest Palestinian escape from an Israeli jail since 1987, when six members of the Islamic Jihad broke out of a heavily-guarded jail in Gaza.

The escape, which marks a humiliating defeat for Israel, has prompted Tel Aviv to launch a massive manhunt in the occupied West Bank and to conduct air raids against the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the escape a “grave incident”, while Palestinians celebrated it on social media.

Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, also hailed the jailbreak as a “heroic act” and a “powerful blow to the occupation forces”.

Source: WAFA news agency