QALQILIYA, Monday, August 19, 2019 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today sealed off the entrance to Azzun town, east of Qaqiliya city.

Witnesses confirmed that Israeli forces installed a metal gate to block the town entrance, preventing passage in both directions and forcing Palestinians to take longer routes to reach their destinations.

Azzun is surrounded on all sides by areas under Israeli military control and an Israeli settlement bloc sits directly to the south.

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 51-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.

K.F.