Israeli forces continue a military siege on a Palestinian village near the West Bank city of Ramallah for the third consecutive day, Press TV reports.
On Monday, Israeli forces blocked all main entrances to the village of Nabi Saleh, and attacked anyone who attempted to enter or leave the village.
The Israeli regime imposed the blockade on the village after declaring it a ‘military closed zone.’ Residents of the village complain that they are facing a humanitarian crisis after the blockade.
“The blockade is affecting not only Nabi Saleh but all the surrounding villages…. This is a severe issue that is having a direct impact on all the residents, including the sick, elderly and youth,” said Saleh al-Khawajeh, a Palestinian human rights activist.
Noal Tamimi, a resident of Nabi Saleh, said that many villagers have to take alternative dangerous routes out and when they do, they are faced by Israeli forces’ gas and rubber bullets attacks.
“If we want to go to Ramallah or other towns we suffer. For example, my mother is 60 years old and needs an operation. When I attempted to take her to hospital, the [Israeli] army prevented us from leaving through the main gate and then attacked us with teargas,” Tamimi said.
The blockade by Israeli forces came three days after the residents held a weekly protest against the illegal Israeli settlement activities happening nearby. Forces arrested two Palestinian women and three foreign journalists and injured dozens of others.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.
The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.
MN/AS/MAM
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