Sunday August 30, 2015 19:22author by IMEMC News & Agencies Report post


Palestinian Christians clashed with Israeli forces, following mass on Sunday, when priests and demonstrators marched to protest renewed work on the apartheid wall in the Christian majority town of Beit Jala, in the occupied West Bank.



The march, the most recent in a string of protests, moved through neighborhoods in the Bethlehem-district town where Israeli forces have started new work on the separation wall, which is illegal under international law.

Protesters, according to Ma'an, also condemned the nearby illegal Israeli settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo, which they fear will be expanded if the construction on the wall goes ahead.

Several clergymen participated in the march led by Archbishop and Latin Patriarch Micheal Sabbah. Israeli forces shot tear-gas at protesters and physical altercations broke out between Israeli forces attempting to suppress the protest.

Sabbah urged the world to support the people of Beit Jala in their battle against the separation wall and called on the Palestinian Authority to bring attention to Israeli violations against Palestinians. Nearly 60 kilometers of the wall already cuts through the Bethlehem governorate and is built on Palestinian land, according to the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs. Israel's High Court ruled in April that the work must stop and told the government to consider alternative routes.

However, on July 6 the court reversed the decision, ruling that the previous ban referred only to an area of a few hundred meters alon