The Israeli occupation army has been closing for several days all main entrances to Palestinian towns and villages in the western countryside of Bethlehem province in the occupied West Bank.
Local sources said that there are military barriers and checkpoints in different areas of the western countryside of Bethlehem where Israeli soldiers have been embarking for days on searching citizens their vehicles and brutalizing them.
About 25000 people in the towns of Husan Nahalin Wadi Fukin and Battir west of Bethlehem have been living under tight siege for nearly nine days according to local official Hasan Hamamreh.
The local residents are forced to use a road near the illegal settlement of Beitar Illit and thus exposed to assaults and harassment by extremist settlers Hamamreh said.
The Israeli army claimed it took these measures after Jewish settlers’ cars had been exposed lately to several stone-throwing attacks on roads near those towns and villages.
