JERICHO, March 5, 2026 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces on Thursday evening blocked the entrances of Az-Zubaidat and Marj Na‘ja villages, north of Jericho, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.

It said that the occupation forces erected metal gates at the entrances of the villages, effectively besieging them.

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 2025, 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 917 fixed and flying checkpoints and gates, including 244 gates 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 59-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.