TULKARM, January 15, 2018 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Monday blocked the entrances to several villages in the Tulkarm district with metal gates and cement cubes, said local sources.

Witnesses told WAFA that Israeli troops set up a metal gate at the entrance of Ramin, east of Tulkarm, Shufa southeast of Tulkarm and Safarin to the north, which obstructed peoples’ movement.

The blocked entrances are located near a bypass road that connects the settlements of Avni Hafetz and Inab with Israel.

Murad Droubi, a resident of Shufa said these measures are not new, because Israel blocked off the entrances before under the pretext of settlers’ security.

He said “This closure will create more suffering and make it harder for us to move around especially employees and students who have to travel to Nablus everyday and farmers working in their land. It will also obstruct development projects in the area.”

Droubi said the western entrance to Shufa is now controlled by Israeli soldiers with the installation of a metal gate and the agricultural road has been closed with earth mounds for years now, which means that closing the gate would isolate the whole village.

Head of Ramin village council Mahmoud Zaidan said they were shocked to see Israeli soldiers blocking the village’s entrance, which has been open for only a year and a half now after it remained closed since 2001.

This closure would obstruct peoples’ movement and force them to take long bypass roads to reach their destination.

M.H.