Walls, Iron Gates, and Military Attacks to Create Palestinian Ghettos]
Ahead of the expiration of the deadline given by the UN General Assembly to end the illegal occupation, Israel is tightening its grip on the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank. Israel has transformed the West Bank into isolated enclaves resembling prisons, divided by walls, various barriers and obstacles. Besides restrictions of movements between villages that imprison Palestinians in their village or city, Israeli apartheid confines Palestinians to their homes under curfews. According to OCHA in March 2025, Israel has placed a total of 849 Israeli movement obstacles throughout the occupied West Bank. A third (288) of the obstacles are road gates, most of which are frequently closed. This week, Israel has significantly tightened its siege on Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank, installing more iron gates, locks and closing existing gates and checkpoints.
Some recent iron gate installations:
- Bethlehem: in the Ush Ghurab area, near Beit Sahour and in Wadi Fukin
- Jerusalem: Al-Ram, Mukhmas and Al-Eizariya
- Jenin: Southern entrance to Zabda; blocks access for around 7,000 Palestinians
The occupation army has closed all entrances to the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding villages and towns. It has also imposed strict measures on the northern and northwestern entrances to the city of Ramallah, installing additional iron gates at these entrances.
Checkpoints & blockades:
- Qalqilya: Cement blocks placed at Al-Funduq village entrance
- Ramallah: IOF blocked access to Turmus Ayya and sealed Deir Jarir
Attacks in Ramallah
- September 12:
- Deir Jarir: Israeli occupation forces invaded the village of Deir Jarir, and opened fire on a group of Palestinians, injuring five of them. One of the injured, 21-year-old Palestinian, Mohammad Issa Ahmad Alawi, was killed as a result of the wounds the next day. Israeli forces also occupied one home and sealed off the village’s main entrance for several hours, restricting movement and access.
- Beitin: Israeli forces stormed the village of Beitin, and seized the home near the illegal colonial bypass road known as Route 60, and converted it into a military outpost. Israeli forces also invaded several homes and commercial shops in Beitin the previous night, firing stun grenades and tear gas at Palestinians.
- September 13:
- Israeli occupation forces raided several villages and towns in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate:
- The Israeli military stormed Al-Mughayyir with heavy firing of sound bombs and toxic tear gas. Al-Mughayyir has been intensely attacked by settlers and the Israeli army, with a large campaign of uprooting its trees and attacking its residents since August.
- The Israeli military raided the town of Beitunia, stormed a commercial store, seized surveillance camera recordings, and closed an entire area in the town.
- The Israeli military raided the town of Turmus Ayya and the village of Kafr Ni’ma.
- Israeli occupation forces raided several villages and towns in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate:
Attack on Palestinian Mayors
As Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, it is simultaneously advancing, as Israel’s minister for the occupation of the West Bank, Bezalel Smotritch advocated, the annexation of 82% of the occupied West Bank and oppose the creation of what the Western world imagines as the Palestinian “state”.
Targeted Arrests of Mayors:
Israel and western media called for establishing an administrative area in Hebron, replacing local leaders with leaders from local clans selected by Israel. With this “Hebron Emirate” plan, Israel is desperately revisiting a 1978 failed strategy known as “Village Leagues” to use clans as a point for control, a racist, orientalist move rejected by local tribes and the Palestinian people at large.
On the ground, Hebron Mayor Tayseer Abu Sneineh was detained on September 2 from his home and placed under administrative detention. The Israeli settler-colonial regime has long employed the policy of administrative detention as part of its carceral tactics against Palestinians. This widespread policy allows Israel to detain Palestinians at any given time and indefinitely, without charge or trial, in the attempt to to criminalize Palestinian social and political mobilization, and to thwart Palestinian resistance against ongoing apartheid and dispossession.
- In Hebron on September 14:
- Israeli forces raided the Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University, where several students and professors were temporarily held and interrogated.
- In the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron, Israeli forces detained a female university student, after raiding her home and several others in the area.
- In the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, soldiers stormed several homes in the Safa area, and detained university students after conducting intensive raids and causing damage to property.
- Other mayors detained:
- Jenin: Mayor Abdel Fattah Abu Ali on September 11
- Jerusalem: Mayor Nafez Hamouda on September 10
- Bethlehem: Israeli military raided an elementary school and assaulted the town’s mayor and officials on September 15
- Historical Precedents:
- Qalqilya (2007): Mayor Wajih Qawas held under repeated administrative detention.
- Tulkarem (2009): Village council head Fathi Al-Hayek detained for the 9th consecutive term.
- Jerusalem (2019): Governor Adnan Ghaith arrested 17 times in two years.
[Attack on Education]
- Further south, officials in the Hebron area said the army distributed demolition notices for five makeshift homes in the village of Khirbet Zanuta, east of Yatta. A separate order targeted al-Zuwaidin Secondary School, which serves around 120 students in the Masafer Yatta region.
- A Palestinian school in the occupied West Bank is facing calls for demolition by an Israeli lawmaker due to its location on a highway used by illegal settlers.
- The Israeli military on Monday prevented teachers from reaching schools in the Jordan Valley through the Hamra and Tayasir military checkpoints.
- The Israeli military stopped students from Shu’fat refugee camp, northeast of occupied Jerusalem, on Monday morning from attending school. The army prevented several buses carrying students from leaving the camp and detained dozens of students in the waiting area near the military checkpoint at its entrance.
- Israeli forces raided an elementary school in the town of al-Khader in Bethlehem on Sunday evening and physically assaulted the town’s mayor and other officials.