Israeli forces cut off entrances to Jericho, settlers attack West Bank villages

The Israeli army blocked entrances to a city in the West Bank on Saturday, as multiple raids were reported across the occupied territory overnight.

Soldiers closed the iron gates installed at the entrances to Jericho, shutting all four access points leading into the town and causing hundreds of vehicles to get caught in traffic.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the army blocked Jericho’s entrances, but a total of 916 permanent and temporary Israeli checkpoints are currently set up across fragmented Palestinian communities in the West Bank, including more than 243 iron gates installed since October 2023 with the start of the Gaza war.

Elsewhere on Saturday, Palestinian news agency WAFA said a group of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles in the village of Ain Yabrud in the central West Bank, without causing injuries.

Israeli forces had carried out intense raids across the occupied West Bank overnight Friday into Saturday, resulting in injuries, arrests, and assaults on private Palestinian property.

A young Palestinian man was seriously wounded in the head after Israeli troops opened fire during a raid in the village of Qarawat Bani Zaid, northwest of Ramallah, The New Arab’s sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, cited local sources as saying.

Israeli forces conducted house-to-house raids amid confrontations with Palestinians that involved the use of live ammunition, leaving several locals injured and multiple people detained in towns including Deir Ballout and Azoun.

The number of injuries or people arrested was not specified.

In the city of Hebron - the most divided city in the West Bank, where the majority Palestinian population is constantly under attack by extremist Jewish Israeli settlers - soldiers reportedly stormed residential areas, detaining young men.

In the Bethlehem province, clashes were reported in the village of Beit Fajar and an Israeli incursion was reported in Al-Khadir. Soldiers also raided Nalin and other villages west of Ramallah.

Israeli military and settler violence has dramatically increased in the occupied territory in the past few months. Sweeping military raids had already spiked since the start of this year.

Around 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the assaults, with more than 21,000 others detained, and some later released. Israeli authorities have continued to demolish Palestinian homes and forcefully expel families, while expanding the construction of illegal settlements.