The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Tuesday seized Mount Fardis in the east of Bethlehem after sealing the area around it and isolating it from the town of Beit Ta’mir.
According to local sources the IOF closed the area around Mount Fardis with barbed wire and built a gate at the entrance leading to it.
Palestinian deputy minister of tourism and antiquities Hamdan Taha condemned such Israeli practice and said that the mount is an integral part of the Palestinian heritage that is under Israel’s occupation.
Although the Israeli occupation imposed its control over the mount by force but the Palestinian official expressed his belief that such step would never change the fact that the area is part of occupied Palestine.
“The occupation is trying to employ heritage sites to serve Israeli claims about the existence of Jewish history on the land of Palestine” he said.
