JERUSALEM, March 20, 2026 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces on Friday morning sealed off the al-Jib military checkpoint, northwest of the occupied West Bank city of Jerusalem, according to the Jerusalem Governorate.

It said that the occupation forces blocked the permanently-staffed checkpoint, denying hundreds of Palestinians access to nearby mosques to perform Eid al-Fitr prayers.

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.