JERICHO, May 2, 2025 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces sealed off on Friday all of the entrances of the occupied West Bank city of Jericho, according to eyewitnesses.

They said that the occupying forces closed the gates installed at the entrances of the city in both directions, forcing Palestinians to wait in long queues.

A group of colonists also blocked the northern entrance to Jericho by parking their vehicles sideways across the road, forcing Palestinian vehicles to turn back.

The occupation forces have been tightening military measures across the occupied West Bank since hours after the release of the first batch of Palestinian prisoners as part of the Gaza ceasefire went into effect in January, dismembering and isolating cities and governorates from one another using military gates, barriers, and concrete blocks.

They have severely restricted Palestinians’ freedom of movement within the occupied West Bank through a complex combination of approximately 898 fixed and flying checkpoints and gates, including 18 gates that have been installed since the start of 2025 and 146 others installed in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, settler-only roads, over 200 military bases, and various other physical obstructions.

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

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.