Deir Istya Mayor Nazmi Suleiman said that Israeli forces established military checkpoints on all roads leading to the reserve to prevent the villagers from reaching the “beautiful place.”
Suleiman added that the Israeli also ordered the farmers to leave the area to allow the Jewish occupiers to recreate in the area.
The Israeli forces barred Palestinian activists from planting olive trees in the village of Aboud, to the west of Ramallah.
Elias Azar, the head of Aboud municipal council, said Israeli soldiers barred some 50 Palestinian activists from planting olive trees near the settlement of Beit Aryeh.
Azar added that the soldiers uprooted dozens of olive trees the activists “succeeded in planting before the arrival of Israeli soldiers.”
Also in the West Bank, the Israeli Army used force to disperse Palestinian, Israeli and foreign leftist activists in the villages of Al-Mi’sarah, Al-Nabi Saleh, Ni’lin and Bil’in.
Palestinian sources said that dozens suffered from tear gas inhalation. They received medical treatment at the scene, the sources added.
The activists were demonstrating against the separation wall Israel builds on their lands.
Israel started the construction of the eight-meter-height cement wall in 2002. It said that the wall is to prevent Palestinian militants from infiltrating into Israel and carry out deadly bombing attacks.
In Hebron, occupiers from the settlement of Al-Dabouya set fire to the entrances of several stores at Shallaleh Street in the center of the city.
Palestinian eyewitnesses said that the Palestinian Fire Department arrived at the scene and controlled the fire before expansion.
The eyewitnesses said that the fire caused minor damage to several stores.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians and settlers clashed in the West Bank settlement of Netzer to the south of Hebron.
Palestinian sources said that the clashes erupted after the occupiers began the cultivation of lands belonging to them. The settlers said that the fight broke out when a Palestinian attacked one of their friends, who was working in a field.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were halted in September 2010. The Palestinians walked out of the US-brokered negotiations, protesting the resumption of Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank.
The United States, which sponsors the peace process, set September as the time for the completion of the negotiations and promised to support the Palestinians to have a full membership in the United Nations.
Also in that month, a two-year plan to upgrade national institutions for a possible declaration of an independent Palestinian state is expected to be implemented.
