Palestinian Mourners Protest Killing of Vendor by Israeli
Breaking away from a funeral procession, 200 Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli soldiers Wednesday in a third day of protests over the army’s shooting of a Bethlehem souvenir vendor.
Masked protesters twirling slingshots hurled rocks and empty bottles at soldiers guarding Rachel’s Tomb, an Israeli enclave in Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem.
Israeli troops responded with tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets.
Eight Palestinians were hit by rubber bullets and 10 demonstrators were treated for tear gas inhalation.
The vendor, Mousa Abu Hilail, was fatally shot Monday by a soldier near Rachel’s Tomb, a Jewish shrine revered as the burial site of the biblical matriarch. The soldier claimed Abu Hilail had tried to stab him, but Palestinian officials have alleged that the soldier opened fire without provocation.
Chanting “Death to America and Israel!” hundreds of mourners accompanied the body of Abu Hilail, which was draped in a Palestinian flag, from his house to a mosque in the village of Beit Sahur next to Bethlehem.
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