Dozens of people were wounded after Israel\u2019s army opened fire with live rounds, sound grenades, and tear gas at a prominent university in the occupied West Bank as students sat in classrooms and roamed the campus.<\/p>\n
Israeli soldiers smashed open the university\u2019s gates as panicked students and staff watched in shock on Tuesday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Three of the injured were shot in the legs, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Five people suffered tear gas inhalation, and three were hit by flying shrapnel.<\/p>\n In a statement, Birzeit University said the attack \u201cconstitutes a flagrant and deliberate violation of the sanctity of universities and educational institutions\u201d, the official Wafa news agency reported.<\/p>\n \u201cStorming the campus in broad daylight and transforming it into a military zone reflects a systematic policy aimed at intimidating students, undermining their right to education, and targeting Palestinian consciousness,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The Palestinian Ministry of Health said 11 people arrived at the Istishari Arab Hospital in Ramallah for treatment.<\/p>\n The Israeli raid followed a student event in solidarity with thousands of Palestinian prisoners held incommunicado in Israeli jails, and coincided with a screening of the film \u201cHind Rajab\u201d, a six-year-old girl shot dead by troops during the genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n Israeli forces stormed the campus shortly before the screening.\u00a0The Israeli army said it targeted a \u201cgathering in support of terrorism\u201d at the university.<\/p>\n Reporting from Birzeit University, Al Jazeera\u2019s Nida Ibrahim said that in total 41 people were wounded in the attack, with 11 hospitalised.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was unprecedented. People are telling us they\u2019ve never seen anything like it. We are talking about the first time for an Israeli raid inside the campus where the students are taking their classes, and while the Israeli forces started shooting live ammunition, not just tear gas,\u201d Ibrahim said.<\/p>\n \u201c[For Palestinians] living under occupation, with limited options with so many restrictions, they rely on education to have jobs, to have a life, to sustain their families. But now we\u2019re looking at a state of worry among many students. No place is immune from Israeli assaults.\u201d<\/p>\n Palestine\u2019s Ministry of Education and Higher Education condemned the violent incursion and said the attack disregarded all international norms and conventions when it comes to education facilities.<\/p>\n The assault will not \u201cbreak the will of Palestinian students or staff\u201d, the ministry said, calling on the International Association of Universities, the Association of Arab Universities, and international human rights organisations to denounce the Israeli shooting.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Israel on Tuesday cleared the final hurdle before starting construction on a controversial settlement project near East Jerusalem that would effectively cut the occupied West Bank into two, according to a government tender.<\/p>\n A tender seeking bids from developers clears the way to begin construction of the E1 project. The anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now first reported the tender. Yoni Mizrahi, who runs the group\u2019s settlement watch division, said initial work could begin within the month.<\/p>\n Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen because of US pressure during previous administrations.<\/p>\n The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.<\/p>\n The E1 project is especially contentious because it runs from the outskirts of Jerusalem deep into the occupied West Bank. Critics say it would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the territory.<\/p>\n Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who oversees settlement policy, has long pushed for the plan to become a reality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions,\u201d Smotrich said in August when Israel gave final approval to the plan. \u201cEvery settlement, every neighbourhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.\u201d<\/p>\n Dozens of people were wounded after Israel\u2019s army opened fire with live rounds, sound grenades, and tear gas at a prominent university in the occupied West Bank as students sat in classrooms and roamed the campus. Israeli soldiers smashed open the university\u2019s gates as panicked students and staff watched in shock on Tuesday. Recommended Stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Started shooting\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"epa12630732](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/epa_695d5552bccb-1767724370.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80\")
\u2018Nail in the coffin\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"INTERACTIVE](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/INTERACTIVE-Occupied-West-Bank-Israel-approves-19-new-illegal-settlements-1766394958.png?quality=80\")
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