Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated Wednesday across the West Bank, marking the beginning of a week-long activities against the Israeli occupation of the territory.

Clashes erupted when the protests reached Israeli army checkpoints, military posts and special roads allocated for the use of Jewish settlers, witnesses said.

Medical sources said that 15 people were hospitalized after inhaling teargas that the Israeli soldiers fired toward the protesters, who hurled rocks at the soldiers in return. Dozens others were treated of rubber-bullet injuries on the scene.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party called for the demonstration to mark the 24th anniversary of the symphonic independence that late leader Yasser Arafat declared in 1988.

The demonstrators obstructed the movement of settlers on some of the roads they sealed off, but the Israeli troops prevented them from passing through the checkpoints to merge the rallies into a larger, central one.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who took part in one of the demonstrations in Ramallah, said that the Palestinian people "have the right of independence, freedom and the rejection of the Israeli occupation and the settlers' terror."

The protestors held Palestinian flags and banners supporting the Palestinian leadership in its bid to upgrade the Palestinian status at the United Nations. Abbas said that the request to upgrade the status from an observer entity to a non-member state would be submitted on Nov. 29. 

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