Nablus, April 30 (RHC)-- Scores of Palestinians have been injured as Israeli forces attacked a weekly protest against the occupation and the separation wall in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah city, leaving dozens of Palestinians and foreign activists suffering from respiratory problems.

The repressive forces also fired rubber-coated bullets to suppress the peaceful protest.  The Palestinian Red Crescent said 39 Palestinians suffered teargas inhalation and three others were shot and injured with rubber-coated steel bullets in Kafr Qaddum.

Residents of Kafr Qaddum hold weekly protest rallies to express their anger at the illegal Israeli settlements as well as the construction of a separation wall that snakes across the occupied West Bank, isolating large swathes of Palestinian territories.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.

The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were seized by Israel in the 1967 war and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.