Ramallah City Sealed off by Israeli Forces for Second Consecutive Day

Israeli military sealed off the major roads of leading to Ramallah, closing the DCO checkpoint, Atara checkpoint, Ein Sinya intersection, Oyoun al-Haramiya intersection and Silwad bridge, WAFA reported.

They also set up roadblocks at the entrance of Ras Karkar village, west of Ramallah, blocking access to and from the village.

This came as Israeli armored military vehicles raided Al-Bireh city, conducting house-to-house searching raids in al-Barid and al-Mu'alemin neighborhoods.

The raids were conducted as part of a manhunt for a Palestinian youth who earlier seriously wounded a soldier after hitting him with a rock in the head inside Beit El settlement as well as for a gunman who on Thursday carried out a drive-by shooting attack and killed two Israeli soldiers outside a nearby settlement and sped away.

Forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance of Surda town, north of Ramallah, forcing Palestinian residents of the northern West Bank districts to take lengthy detours to reach their houses.

Scores of Palestinian residents of the northern west Bank were unable to commute back their places of residence as a result of the Israeli-imposed virtual lockdown on Ramallah and after dozens of Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles across the west Bank, especially to the south of Nablus.

This follows a 24-hour-spate of deadly attacks and raids across the west Bank that left four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers dead.

This also came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threated a series of collective punishment measures following the attacks, such as demolition of homes belonging to the families of suspected Palestinian assailants and accelerated settlement construction.

Such Israeli measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 51-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.

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