RAMALLAH, January 21, 2025 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces Tuesday closed a major checkpoint at the northern entrance of al-Bireh city near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to local sources.

They said that the occupation forces sealed off al-Mahkama checkpoint, ordering hundreds of Palestinian-registered vehicles to turn back amidst tightened movement restrictions around the cities.

The occupation forces tightened military measures across the occupied West Bank hours after the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of the Gaza ceasefire went into effect, dismembering and isolating cities and governorates one from the other using military gates, barriers, and concrete blocks.

Israeli soldiers deployed along the roads across the occupied West Bank and closed the entry points of most of the cities, causing severe traffic congestion and trapping thousands of Palestinian citizens near the checkpoints for long hours.

The Israeli military measures are in parallel with ongoing attacks by Israeli colonists across the West Bank with the aim of terrorizing Palestinians and displacing them from their lands to seize them and build illegal Jewish colonies that separate Palestinian communities.

Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement within the occupied West Bank through a complex combination of approximately 500 fixed checkpoints, hundreds of flying checkpoints, settler-only roads, over 200 military bases, and various other physical obstructions.

Closures besides other measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 58-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.