QALQILYA, September 29, 2026 (WAFA) - Inhabitants of the town of Azzun, east of Qalqilya, rallied on Tuesday calling for the reopening of the town's northern main entrance, which has been sealed off with an iron gate since October 7, 2023.
The participants held banners calling for the reopening of the entrance, given its importance in facilitating the movement of the town inhabitants and revitalizing commercial and economic activity in the town.
Azzun Municipality member Abdullah Joudeh told WAFA that the inhabitants continue to hold the weekly protest to demand the reopening of the entrance, which serves as a vital artery for the town, connecting it to several neighboring villages and towns.
Joudeh noted that its closure forces the inhabitants to take long, alternative routes, adding to their daily hardships.
He called on international and human rights organizations to assume their responsibilities and pressure the occupation authorities to reopen the entrance, end the inhabitants' suffering, and allow them freedom of movement and travel.
The occupation forces have 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 on January 19, 2025. Such restrictions were further tightened under the pretext of and since the onset of the Israeli-Iranian war, dismembering and isolating cities and governorates from one another using military gates, barriers, and concrete blocks.
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.
Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement within the occupied West Bank through a complex combination of 942 checkpoints and barriers, including 824 fixed checkpoints and 118 linear barriers (earth mounds, trenches and roadblocks), extending for approximately 107.7 kilimeters, not to mention 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 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.
