Hajar and Rashid Hathaleen have always walked to school from their neighborhood on the outskirts of Umm al-Khair. But when classes resumed this week for the first time since the Iran war began, coiled barbed wire blocked the Palestinian siblings' path to the village center.
Israeli settlers had installed it overnight, according to video that Palestinian residents provided to The Associated Press. Palestinians say the improvised fence is just the latest attempt by settlers to expand control in part of the occupied West Bank where state-backed demolitions, arson and vandalism regularly occur and settler violence, at times lethal, is rarely prosecuted.
