Israeli Army Seals Four Entrances to West Bank Village of Madama, Cutting Off Schools and Hospitals

Wail Qut used to drive from Madama to his legal aid job in Ramallah in about fifteen minutes. For more than two weeks now, he has not been able to leave his village at all.

On October 11, the Israeli army sealed all four entrances to Madama, a village south of Nablus, with earthen barriers. The military told residents, according to Qut, that the closure would remain in place until Palestinian farmers stopped trying to reach their land in the northern part of the village, where an illegal settler outpost sits. The restriction has cut off movement for more than 2,500 residents, Al Jazeera reported. On October 20 the army briefly opened the northern entrance for a few hours before shutting it again.

Qut, a legal consultant for the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, said residents cleared a rough dirt track toward the neighboring village of Asira to reach the outside world. He called it "a dangerous gamble" in an area, he said, "swarming with settlers." Soldiers deployed a drone to monitor people using the route and, according to Qut, fired sound grenades and tear gas canisters at residents who tried. The army later blocked the track as well.

"I returned to the village and found settlers everywhere, monitoring the tight siege," Qut told Al Jazeera, describing the brief reopening of the northern entrance before it was closed again.

Rami Nassar, head of the Madama Village Council, said the siege coincided with a Israeli bulldozing operation that residents describe as "horrific," striking during the olive harvest, the village's main source of income. Nassar said Israel seized village land in the 1980s to establish the Yitzhar settlement and more land in the 1990s for the settler-only Route 60. He said settlers set up an illegal pastoral outpost near the al-Murabbaa checkpoint in April and have since been siphoning electricity and water from village utility lines and destroying crops. In July, Nassar said, settler bulldozers operating under army protection leveled roughly 57 hectares and uprooted hundreds of mature olive trees in the village's northwest.

During the current harvest, Nassar said soldiers chased farmers from their fields while settlers stole harvested olives and equipment from those who managed to reach their land.

The closures have blocked access to work, schools, and hospitals, and halted deliveries of supplies including cooking gas, according to Nassar. He said a resident who suffered a heart attack had to be carried by the village doctor over earthen berms and through olive groves and steep slopes in a private vehicle, a trip that normally takes fifteen minutes stretching past two hours. Samer al-Jamal, director general of education for the southern Nablus district, said the closures have deprived thousands of students of schooling.

Al Jazeera said it contacted the Israeli military for comment and had not received a response at the time of publication.