Five people have been wounded as Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian protesters marching against the Tel Aviv regime’s illegal settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

On Friday, Israeli soldiers attacked a weekly protest in Kafr Qaddum, a town in northern West Bank, with live fire and injured five people, the Ma’an News Agency reported.

Two of the injured protesters, aged 20 and 35, are reportedly in critical condition. Dozens others suffered from teargas inhalation.

Clashes also erupted between Israeli troops and Palestinian marchers in Bil’in, a village in the central West Bank, but there are no reports on the possible casualties.

Figures show Tel Aviv’s illegal settlement activities have more than doubled in the first quarter of this year amid growing international criticism.

Thousands of Palestinians stage weekly rallies to denounce the Israeli settlement activities and the separation wall, which has isolated large swathes of Palestinian territory.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967.

Israel occupied and then annexed the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) in the Six-Day War of 1967, but the move has never been recognized by the international community.

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds, and the besieged Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.

RS/AS/MHB