Israel to block movement of Palestinians, seal off West Bank and Gaza for Jewish holidays

Israel will seal off the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip ahead of three Jewish holidays marking nearly a month of religious commemorations, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

Palestinians will not be allowed to leave the West Bank or Gaza Strip to enter Israel during the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana, later this month, as well as the Yom Kippur and Sukkot holidays in October.

"During the closure, passage will be allowed only in humanitarian, medical and exceptional cases," said the army, which regularly imposes these measures during the holidays.

In a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke of "the need for calming the situation on the ground and halting terrorism ahead of the upcoming Jewish holidays", Lapid's office said.

Israeli forces say that the closures come against a backdrop of tensions after a series of attacks on Israelis.

The Israeli army, however, has killed scores of Palestinians during recent weeks, mainly in violent raids in the West Bank, chiefly targeting the cities of Jenin and Nablus.

Most of those killed were civilians, including several teenagers.

The operations have been widely condemned by rights groups, who say they are a deliberate tactic to intimidate and threaten Palestinians.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian was killed in clashes in the city of Nablus in a rare operation by Palestinian Authority security forces to arrest members of Hamas.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement has been at loggerheads with Hamas since 2007, when the Islamist movement took control of the Gaza Strip after a near civil war.

Since then, negotiations have failed to bring about a full reconciliation between the two rival Palestinian groups.

Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, imposing severe restrictions on Palestinian life and using violent means to harass, intimidate and harm Palestinians.

It also continues to impose an ongoing 15-year blockade on the Gaza Strip which has plunged tens of thousands of Palestinians into poverty.