Israeli army today sealed off the northern entrance to Tuqu‘ town, south of Bethlehem, according to a local source.
The town mayor, Tayseer Abu Mefreh, said that the soldiers closed the metal gate at the town entrance after they stormed a nearby school campus.
He added that the soldiers set up a checkpoint at the western entrance of the town, stopping villagers on their way out and into the town and inspecting their identity cards.
Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement through a complex combination of approximately 100 fixed checkpoints, flying checkpoints, settler-only roads and various other physical obstructions.
Closures besides to other measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 55-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency