For second day, Palestinian workers barred from some Israeli settlements
After stabbing attacks in two Jewish communities, IDF upholds ban on much of the West Bank
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
For the second day, Palestinian workers will not be allowed into some Jewish settlements in the West Bank on Wednesday, following two stabbing attacks in two separate communities.
“Security measures will continue in the Israeli communities in the areas of Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, and some of the communities in the area of Ramallah,” an army spokesperson said Tuesday.
The head of the IDF’s West Bank division, Brig. Gen. Lior Carmeli, first decided to keep Palestinian workers out of all settlements in the West Bank on Monday evening, following the terror attacks in Otniel and Tekoa.
Carmeli opted to renew the policy “following the daily situational assessment and in light of recent terror attacks,” the army spokesperson said.
“These measures will be evaluated on a daily basis, and additional security measures in other parts of Judea and Samaria have already been removed,” the army official said.
In addition, Hawara checkpoint outside of Nablus will be closed to south-bound traffic for several hours on Wednesday for renovations, an IDF spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
The closure is unrelated to the current security situation, she added.
In its place, traffic will be directed through a temporary checkpoint a few meters away, the spokesperson said.
Though the IDF did not wish to state when exactly the checkpoint would be closed, as it may be subject to the change, Osama Mansour, head of the Palestinian military liaison in Nablus, told the Palestinian Ma’an news service that the closures would occur between 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
On Sunday, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed 38-year-old Dafna Meir to death at the entrance to her home at Otniel, in the Hebron Hills. Meir, a mother of six, was laid to rest on Monday.
On Monday morning, a Palestinian teenager stabbed and moderately injured Michal Froman, who is 18 weeks pregnant, inside the Bethlehem-area settlement of Tekoa. Following the stabbing, Palestinian workers were barred from the settlement.
Froman was out of danger in the hospital after surgery later Monday, and the fetus was stable and unharmed, doctors said. She spoke to the media from her hospital bed on Tuesday.
Palestinian laborers are occasionally banned from settlements in response to security incidents or Jewish holidays.
Thousands of Palestinians — as many as 20,000 by some estimates — are employed inside settlements, mostly in construction, manufacturing and agriculture.
In June 2014, thousands of Palestinian workers were barred from settlements in the Etzion settlement bloc and elsewhere during a search for three kidnapped Israeli teens, who were later found murdered by Hamas terrorists.
That move, which was seen as a way of putting pressure on the Palestinian population, drew the ire of some settlers, who said the directive harmed their businesses.
