Witnesses: Israeli forces uproot olive trees in Qalqiliya village

QALQILIYA (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces uprooted olive trees in the village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqiliya, on Sunday.

Witnesses told Ma'an that tanks and soldiers arrived in the village and began digging up land in order to expand the nearby Israeli settlement of Qedumim. 

Dozens of villagers tried to stop military forces from destroying their land, but were held back by soldiers. 

Israeli forces clamped down on a weekly non-violent demonstration on Friday in the Qalqiliya village.

On Jan. 30, Israeli forces detained five men from the village, locals told Ma'an.

Kafr Qaddum holds a weekly protest against the decade-long closure of the area's main entrance.

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Soldiers arrest 4 activists at Bethlehem village protest

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces arrested four activists at a protest in al-Walaja village near Bethlehem on Sunday.

A statement from the Popular Committee Against the Wall said that Israeli forces arrested campaign coordinator Mazin al-Aza and three others.

The protests against the Israeli separation wall began at the al-Nour mosque in the village, before heading to al-Jweza spring.

Residents of the southern West Bank village are overwhelmingly refugees, driven from the historic al-Walaja, located just across the valley from the current population center.

The village was, in 1948, the second largest land area after Jerusalem but was cut down to one third the size when Israel declared statehood that year.

Now a border village, al-Walaja is edged on its eastern flank by an expanding bloc of settlements and is being reduced in size by the path of Israel's separation wall which annexes between two and three kilometers of village lands from the pre-1967 border.

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Soldiers assault Palestinian construction worker

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A Palestinian construction worker was injured by Israeli forces on Thursday while working near Israel's separation wall in Jerusalem, relatives told Ma'an on Sunday. 

Najeeb Mahmoud al-Zeer, from al-Fureidis village near Bethlehem, said that his brother was attacked by soldiers while working inside Israel. 

He suffered two broken legs and was taken to Beit Jala hospital for treatment.

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