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The injured Palestinian worker at the hospital in Beit Jala.

Illustration: A Palestinian man uses a rope to climb over Israel’s separation wall between the West Bank city of al-Ram and East Jerusalem. (AFP/Thomas Coex, File)
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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces shot and injured a Palestinian in the Wadi al-Hummus neighborhood east of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank as he tried to reach Jerusalem through Israel’s separation wall.

Witnesses told Ma’an that the man was shot in the leg on Sunday while he was trying to pass the separation wall from outskirts of the village of Dar Salah to work in Jerusalem. He was evacuated to the al-Hussein public hospital in Beit Jala. Locals said the man was from the Bethlehem area.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma'an they did not have reports on the incident.

Dar Salah local council member Othman Salah said that nine Palestinian workers had been shot and injured in the village over the past few days while trying to pass through the separation wall to Jerusalem.

He added that Israeli soldiers fire gunshots and tear gas canisters every morning at the village’s houses near the separation wall as they chase workers attempting to enter Jerusalem.

Debilitating poverty and lack of employment drives many workers in the occupied West Bank to enter Israel unlawfully by slipping through gaps in Israel’s separation wall.

The section of the separation wall near the villages of Dar Salah, al-Khass, and al-Nuaman is secured only by chain fences, which makes it easier for workers to cross stealthily.

Last year, there were as many as 112,300 Palestinians employed in Israel and Israel’s illegal settlements -- about 12 percent of the Palestinian workforce -- according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

Israeli forces have come under repeated criticism for excessive use of force against Palestinians that often results in death or injury.