Israeli army today continued to besiege the occupied West Bank city of Jericho for the third consecutive day, according to security sources.
They said that Israeli forces continued to erect checkpoints and barricades at all the main and secondary entrances leading to the city, preventing people from leaving and entering it.
Photos and video footages on social media platforms show Palestinians waiting in a long queues at the checkpoints on the outskirts of the city.
As part of the movement restrictions imposed on the city, a checkpoint was erected close to al-Karameh border crossing, also known as Allenby, east of the city, another close to Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, southwest of the city, two others to the east of the city, in addition to several others blocking secondary roads.
The movement restrictions in place have resulted in blocking the access of Palestinians seeking to travel to Jordan to al-Karameh border crossing, the only land crossing for Palestinians between the occupied West Bank and Jordan.
The besiege has been in place since a Palestinian gunman gunned down an Israeli-American, who has served in the Israeli army for several years, in a drive-by shooting at an illegal colonial settlement near Jericho.
The drive-by shooting came in retaliation to Sunday’s settler pogrom in Huwwara town, south of Nablus.
On Sunday night, hundreds of settlers attacked Palestinian villages and towns in the northern West Bank, setting Huwwara town ablaze after two settler brothers were shot dead in the town, the epicenter of the vigilante mob’s violent rage.
At least one Palestinian was killed and nearly 400 wounded in hours-long rampage on Huwwara and other attacks on West Bank towns and villages, Palestinian health officials said. Settlers completely burnt down at least 35 homes and 40 others were partially damaged, and many of the buildings were set on fire while their Palestinian inhabitants sheltered inside. More than 100 cars were burnt or otherwise destroyed.
Israeli 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 56-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: Palestinian News & Info Agency