Palestinian protesters throw back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops. (Photo: AP)
Ramallah, January 24 (RHC)-- A Palestinian worker has lost his life following an incident where Israeli forces used toxic tear gas against him and his coworkers near the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.
According to the Palestinian Information Center, the victim, identified as 48-year-old Fo’ad Sebti Joudeh from Iraq al-Taya village in the east of Nablus, died on Sunday morning due to a heart attack resulting from asphyxiation. Joudeh was a father of four children, the eldest of whom is ten.
Eyewitnesses said Israeli forces chased and teargassed a number of workers who were on their way to their workplaces inside the Israeli occupied territories as they tried to cross a gate in the Israeli segregation barrier near the village of Far’oun, south of Tulkarm city.
Joudeh’s brother said he had not suffered from any disease prior to the tear gas attack, which proves that the excessive use of tear gas by the Israeli soldiers was behind his heart attack.
Israeli forces frequently engage in atrocities against Palestinians. In recent weeks, assaults by Israeli settlers against Palestinians across the occupied territories have increased sharply.
Illegal settlers on Sunday attacked Palestinian herders and chased them off pastures in the area of Msafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the West Bank. On Saturday, Israeli soldiers and settlers with dogs attacked Palestinian activists and journalists during an anti-settlement activity in Khirbet al-Tawimin community in Masafer Yatta in the south of the West Bank.
According to Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, 33 settler attacks against Palestinians have been documented in recent weeks.
Denouncing the rise in settler attacks, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Thursday blamed the policies of former US President Donald Trump for the uptick in the targeting of Palestinians.
In yet another ferocious attack, two little Palestinian children and their mother were wounded on Thursday night after a group of masked Jewish extremists attacked their family’s car with rocks in the northern West Bank city of Tubas.
