Video - Palestinians clash with IDF forces during Land Day demonstrations.

Palestinians clash with IDF forces during Land Day demonstrations.(TOI).A group of 150 Palestinians clashed with IDF troops during a demonstration near the Qalandiya checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, on Saturday. The Palestinians, protesting Israel’s land distribution policies as part of a series of scheduled demonstrations marking Land Day, threw rocks at the troops who responded by firing non-lethal crowd dispersal weapons.

Two Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets and another person was hit in the face by a tear gas canister, according to Palestinian media sources.

Palestinian media also reported that IDF soldiers fired live ammunition and tear gas canisters towards a Land Day procession east of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. One person was reportedly injured by the fire, though the extent of the injury was unclear.

Security forces continued to be on high alert Saturday in preparation for additional Land Day protests across the West Bank and in Arab-Israeli cities within the Green Line. Security forces presence was beefed up in East Jerusalem and in West Bank hotspots.

“The trick is knowing where to put the troops on hold,” a senior IDF officer was quoted by Israeli Radio as saying at the time. “We learn how to navigate those days, based on what it looked like last year, and the year before that. The secret lies in mounting strong military presence in potential hot spots. The very existence of a military presence can suffice to stymie the rallying, and in the event it occurs, you have a head start over the other side.”

Hamas’s Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said Friday that his organization would never acknowledge the right of “the Zionist entity” to “a single grain of Palestinian land.”

“Occupiers have no future in the land of Palestine,” Haniyeh announced during a speech at the Shati refugee camp, criticizing the Ramallah-based government of the Palestinian Authority for clinging to “illusions of peace” and succumbing to American pressure.Hmmm....Abbas :"Hamas is just like Us." Read the full story here.