Israeli occupation continues to impose collective punishments on 420,000 Palestinians in Nabul

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS, (ST)_ Israeli occupation authorities closed the main entrance of Aboud village, based northwest of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, for the 8th  consecutive day imposing collective punishments on about 420,000 Palestinians living in the city, reported Wafa news agency.

According to local residents, Israeli occupation forces stationed at the military watchtower near the entrance set up iron gates to prevent vehicles travelling through and to force villagers to take an alternative longer route to reach their homes and workplaces.

Residents believe this is also part of an effort to deter people from other cities and villages from visiting.

The Israeli occupation systematically closes entrances to villages and imposes lockdown on areas – from hours to days – as a form of collective punishment, a practice documented and condemned by rights groups.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry asserted that the occupation authorities are expanding their terror areas daily, and are imposing measures that come within the framework of collective punishments that target Palestinians, in terms of paralyzing their ability to move and closing the entrances to their towns, villages and camps.

Palestinian media quoted the Information spokesman for the national events in Nablus, Ghassan Hamdan, as saying: “Health and education sectors are the most affected by the siege as most teachers from the countryside or the city were unable to reach their schools, and university students switched to electronic learning, which threatens the continuity of Education process.”

Hamdan added that health care clinics in the countryside were also affected and they began to face a shortage of medicines as a result of the occupation’s prevention of the entry of the clinics’ staff to the city.

He indicated that the Palestinian national forces sent invitations to representatives of international organizations, consuls working in the occupied Palestinian territories and journalists working in the foreign media to visit Nablus, to see the suffering of the people as a result of the unjust siege imposed by the occupation.

He referred to the daily protests being organized in the town of Hawara, which suffers from daily attacks by Israeli settlers.

For his part, the head of the Jenin Chamber of Commerce, Ammar Abu Bakr, said that economic growth this year will slow, and that estimates of the growth of the Palestinian economy are between 2 and 3 percent, as a result of incursions, executions and attacks committed by the occupation and its settlers and the siege and closure of cities and cut off the roads.

Despite the repeated calls of the Palestinians on the international community, the United Nations and the Red Cross, to enter the cities besieged by the occupation forces, to see the atrocities and to work to lift the siege and stop the aggression, the international community continues its silence and the policy of double standards, which provides protection for the occupation to continue its crimes and implement its colonial settlement plans.

Basma Qaddour