Images
Military force blocking one of the roads this morning. Photo by Nasser Nawaj'ah, B'Tselem, 28 July 2019
Today (Sunday, 28 July 2019), at around 9:00 A.M., Israeli soldiers came to the South Hebron Hills, bringing a bulldozer. They heaped piled up boulders and sandpiles to block access from Route 317 onto two roads that lead to the town of Yata and serve the community of She’b al-Batem. In March this year, the Israeli forces blocked the access roads to the community, but the residents later reopened the routes. The closure doubles journey times from the community to the regional center Yata. The forces also used boulders to block the turning from Route 317 onto a road leading to the southern entrance to the village of a-Samu’a, thereby blocking the access between the communities of Khirbet a-Rafat and Khirbet Wadi al-‘Amayer, to the north of the road, and Khirbet al-Kharabah and Khirbet Ghuwein al-Fauqa, to the south.