ACTIVISTS BLOCK ISRAELI GATE IN BETHLEHEM

Bethlehem, 11 Rabiul Awal 1435/ 13 January 2014 (MINA) – Palestinian activists Monday blocked the main gate to the Israeli settlement of Eliazar to the south of Bethlehem, according to activists.

Mohammad Burijiya said the activists blocked the gate and prevented settlers from entering or leaving the settlement before Israeli soldiers intervened and pushed them back. Witnesses said the soldiers arrested three of the activists and took them to an interrogation center at a nearby settlement.

Ahmad Salah said activists also planted 100 olive seedlings in an area of al-Khader adjacent to the settlement to protect it from takeover, Palestine’s WAFA reported as cited by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

Israeli occupation forces on Sunday also set up a flying checkpoint near the entrance of Hebron, a southern West Bank village, a popular committee spokesman, Muhammad Ayyad Awad said. Soldiers stopped traffic near the entrance of Beit Ummar, searching vehicles and checking identity cards.

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Awad said the flying checkpoint caused a traffic jam on the road connecting Hebron and Jerusalem.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the checkpoint was set up because Palestinians hurled rocks at a settler bus earlier in the day. “Damage was caused,” she said.

Israeli forces maintain severe restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement in the West Bank through a complex combination of fixed checkpoints, flying checkpoints, roads forbidden to Palestinians but open to Jewish settlers, and various other physical obstructions.

At any given time there are about 100 permanent Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, while surprise flying checkpoints often number into the hundreds.

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The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

Since the 1990s, and especially since the violence associated with the Second Intifada, Israel has created hundreds of permanent roadblocks and checkpoints staffed by Israeli Military or border police.

In September 2011, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said there were 522 roadblocks and checkpoints obstructing Palestinian movement in the West Bank, up from 503 in July 2010.

That number does not include the temporary checkpoints known as “flying checkpoints,” of which there were 495 on average per month in the West Bank in 2011, up from 351 on average per month in the previous two years.

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According to B’Tselem, there were 99 fixed checkpoints in the West Bank in September 2013, in addition to the 174 surprise flying checkpoints. In August 2013, 288 flying checkpoints were counted.

However, according to the IDF, after withdrawing the majority of checkpoints as a goodwill gesture, there were in May 2013 only 12 checkpoints in the central region of the West Bank (T/ P04/P03/mirajnews.com)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)