JERUSALEM, Dec 10 (Reuters & JMCC) - A Palestinian demonstrator injured by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank died of his wounds on Saturday, a hospital spokeswoman and protest organizers said.

Mustafa Tamimi, 28, sustained a head injury during a Friday protest held in the village of Nabi Saleh against an Israeli barrier built across the West Bank. Organizers said he was hit by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers.

A photograph distributed by activists and said to have been taken at the scene shows Tamimi being fired on from inside a jeep only a few meters away.

Similar tear gas projectiles were supposed to have been banned by the military after the death of a Palestinian and serious injury of an American resulted from their use in 2009.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the demonstrators had hurled rocks at (Israeli) security forces who responded with riot dispersal means and that an investigation into the incident was underway.

Tamimi was treated at a hospital in central Israel, where he died early on Saturday, a spokeswoman said.

Regular protests began in Nabi Saleh two years ago after Israeli settlers took over a village spring in an effort to expand the lands of nearby Halamish settlement.

Nearby Bilin village experienced years of similar protests and crackdowns by the Israeli military protesting the route of the West Bank Wall, which swallowed much of the village's farmland. The route was changed earlier this year.

Israel started building the network of metal fencing, barbed wire and concrete walls in 2002 following a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings in its cities.

The World Court in The Hague said in 2004 the Wall was illegal, citing its route inside territory that Israeli forces occupied in a 1967 war. (Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Matthew Jones)