West Bank, MINA – Israeli troops began sweeping agricultural land in preparation for the construction of a separation wall in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.
Bulldozers leveled crops in the city of Sinjil in the central West Bank, with the wall built to block landowners’ access to their gardens and confiscate some 8,000 dunams of land.
The decision to erect the wall was taken eight months ago, as part of the right-wing Israeli government’s plan to isolate Palestinian land from Highway 60, the South-North intercity road that runs through the West Bank and stretches from Beersheba to Nazareth.
Speaking to The New Arab’s Arabic-language service, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Mayor Sinjil Moataz Tawafsha said the wall would be 1,500 meters long and four meters high, blocking access to Palestinian farmers and their lands.
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Tawafsha said some 200 families depend on the olive and fruit trees in these gardens for their livelihood. (T/RE1/P2)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
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