SALFIT, Friday, June 12, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers Friday overnight stormed and attacked a Palestinian house in Kifl Haris town, north of the West Bank city of Salfit, said local sources.
Sources confirmed that scores of settlers, under heavy military protection, stormed the town, where they barged their way into the Islamic shrine of Thul-Kifl, desecrating it.
They also attacked a local house and shouted anti-Palestinian hate slogans.
Israeli soldiers secured the settlers entry into and exit from the town, occupying the rooftops of several houses close to the shrine, forcing local vendors to close their stores and restricting villagers’ movement during the raid.
The town houses several archeological sites, including the shrine of the Muslim Prophet Thul-Kufl, which settlers identify as the traditional burial site of Joshua.
Located at a horizontal distance of some 5 kilometers to the north of Salfit, Kifl Haris has a population of some 4,350 and occupies a total area of 9,300 dunams.
Under the Oslo Accords, an agreement made 25 years ago that was supposed to last just five years towards a self-governing country alongside Israel, the Palestinian Authority was given ed control over a pocket of land occupying some 3,900 dunams and accounting for 42 percent of the village’s total area. This area is classified as Area B. In contrast, Israel maintains control over the remainder, classified as Area C.
An area of 4,209 dunams of the village, accounting for 97 percent, is completely isolated by the section of Israel’s apartheid wall. The majority of this land is agricultural land, forests and open spaces.
The village is flanked by several Israeli colonial settlements, which are partly constructed on land seized from the town; Ariel from the southeast and the cluster of Revavim, Qiryat Netafim and Barqan from the west and southwest.
Israel uses the Jewish nationalist name “Judea and Samaria” to refer to the occupied West Bank to reinforce its bogus claims to the territory and to give them a veneer of historical and religious legitimacy.
There are almost 834,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
K.F.
