Israeli Soldiers Lay Siege on Palestinian Villages near Hebron
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Israeli forces on Saturday cut off a number of Palestinian villages and Bedouin communities in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron (al-Khalil), in the southern West Bank.
The head of the Masafer Yatta Village Council, Nidal Younis, said that the Israeli military used bulldozers to build sand mounds at the Janba and Al-Markaz entrances.
He continued by saying that the troops had set up gates around the region to prevent Palestinians from entering or leaving their villages without passing through them, IMEMC reported.
A few days ago, the Israeli regime army threatened to confiscate Palestinian vehicles and impose hefty fines on any Palestinian who enters those villages or leaves them without going through the ‘security gate,’ effectively turning the villages into open-air prisons.
The Palestinians in Masafer Yatta are subject to constant Israeli violations and attacks by soldiers and illegal colonizers and face repeated demolitions of homes, sheds, and structures, in addition to attacks targeting the shepherds.
The illegal colonizers frequently attack farmers and shepherds, burn farmlands, and demolish sheds.
The Israeli army also bars farmers from reaching large areas of their lands due to military drills using live fire and explosives.
On Friday, Israeli soldiers abducted one Palestinian in Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, and injured many in Beit Dajan, east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Media sources said the soldiers attacked Palestinian protesters in the Bab az-Zawiya area and Shuhada Street in the center of Hebron city and fired many gas bombs at them and surrounding shops.
They added that the soldiers assaulted a young man and took them to their military posts in the area before moving him to an interrogation facility.
In Nablus, in the northern West Bank, the soldiers attacked the Palestinians who were protesting against the Annexation Wall and colonies before shooting a young man with a rubber-coated steel bullet, causing many to suffer the effects of tear gas inhalation.
The Palestinians have been holding ongoing processions on their lands in Sbeih Mountain in Beita, and in Beit Dajan, since May of last year after a group of illegal Israeli colonizers installed an outpost atop the mountain.
The Israeli forces have injured thousands of Palestinians during these protests and killed several others, including children.