More than 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off in Northern West Bank

For a month now, since the second week of December 2005, the Israel Defense Forces has severed the northern part of the West Bank from other parts, and prohibited residents from traveling toward Ramallah and points southward.

The ban applies to some 800,000 people, residents of the Tul Karm, Nablus and Jenin provinces. Until January 2, the ban applied just to residents of Jenin and Tul Karm. Since then it has been extended to Nablus area residents.

The IDF did not issue an order on the new arrangements, which people only found out about at the permanent and so-called flying checkpoints that have prevented them over the past four weeks from traveling southward from the Za'atara junction (the Tapuah checkpoint). They were not informed how long the travel ban would be in effect.

The IDF has also cut off direct traffic links within ! the northern West Bank. The main artery--Road 60, running from the Shavei Shomron settlement to the road leading to the settlements Mevo Dotan and Homesh, has been closed to all Palestinian traffic since mid-August by means of three steel gates. Military sources have told international organizations that this road will be closed to Palestinian traffic until the construction of an additional security fence around Shavei Shomron is completed.

More
http://counterpunch.org/hass01132006.html