“My greatest fear is that my son will not even have the house in which we currently live,”1 said Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman after Israel confiscated more than 100 dunams of his family’s land, closed the entrances to Beit Iksa, his family’s village, and installed an iron gate, besieging residents from all sides. Physical access to the village was already completely blocked since 2021, even to those who wanted to enter and leave on foot, and only villagers with Palestinian Authority (PA) IDs could come and go, as well as a specified list of 70 people to bring in supplies, goods, and services in the morning hours. Even ambulances or civil defense teams are not allowed in without prior coordination.2

As per the new restrictions, which came into effect on Saturday, September 20, 2025, Israel now requires persons wishing to enter and leave these areas to carry special digital entry permits, including residents. This implies that the area in which their localities fall is now part of Israel, as the permits are for entry to Israel.

Under international law, this is illegal as the area falls in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

The move also entailed the cancellation of the residents’ status and IDs under the PA, which they had held since the Oslo Accords were signed in the mid-1990s. They will now be wiped from the PA Population Registry.

Beit Iksa is a Palestinian village northwest of Jerusalem that, until now, has fallen under the jurisdiction of the PA. Under the Oslo Accords, as shown in Map 1, since the 1990s, the village has been designated as Area B, and falls within a larger area that is classified as Area C. Israel has declared its intention to annex at least 60 percent of the West Bank that is classified as Area C, and it appears that the state has decided to also swallow the small Palestinian Area B villages that fall within it.3 Indeed, according to a plan revealed earlier this month by finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, Israel plans to annex 82 percent of the West Bank, leaving six Palestinian urban population centers as islands in its midst, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Jericho, and Hebron.4

“We can’t move freely within our village any more. Our fate is unknown, and we always expect the worst from this merciless occupation.” With these words, Abdul Rahman from Beit Iksa, who asked not to have his real name published for fear of Israeli authorities punishing him, expressed his concern over persecution.

The worry of persecution was the prevailing feeling among all Palestinian residents Jerusalem Story was able to contact in Beit Iksa and the nearby village of al-Nabi Samwil, as well as al-Khalayla neighborhood, because Israeli authorities appear to have changed their status and imposed new restrictions on them as well.

Israel’s decision also concerns many of the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods as they fear the new law may soon apply to them, revealed Saeed Mahmoud, 55, who owned shops in the Beit Hanina neighborhood, north of Jerusalem.5 He lived only a few kilometers away; however, due to the Separation Wall and Israel’s imposed isolation in the villages, Mahmoud was forced to close his shops and return to his village without any work. The entrances and exits to the three areas are now subject to strict military inspections.

Abdul Rahman further discussed his suffering in Beit Iksa, which is only nine kilometers from Jerusalem:

“We overcame the obstacles surrounding the wedding, but then the real suffering began. Especially for my wife, who felt she was gradually being separated from her family. Since we got married, no one from her family, except her parents, has been able to visit her in the village,” he added. “Additionally, visits from her parents were only allowed after members of the municipality coordinated with the Israeli army, and when my wife was about to give birth, Israeli authorities wouldn’t allow an ambulance into the village to take her to the hospital in Ramallah. Some relatives and I were forced to take her to the hospital in our car, even though her condition was critical,” Abdul Rahman explained.

“Frankly, my wife is thinking of moving outside the village so our children can move around freely instead of living in this small prison.”

Despite this horrific situation, Abdul Rahman insisted that he, his family, and all the people of Beit Iksa will remainsteadfast, like the ancient oak trees for which the village is famous. The roots of these trees are deeply rooted in the ground, enduring despite storms and winds.

Marouf al-Rifai, advisor to the Palestinian governor of the Jerusalem governorate and an expert on settlement affairs in Jerusalem, said that the inhumane treatment is the most dangerous aspect of the Israeli army’s decision to issue restrictive regulations on the residents.

“The residents living in these villages, approximately 2,000 people distributed among the three villages, will face almost complete isolation from their natural surroundings, with disruption of access to schools, hospitals, and sources of employment,”6 al-Rifai told Jerusalem Story. “The owners of the land who have lived outside these villages for decades are threatened with losing their livelihoods and their right to return to their lands and homes, as they will not be recognized as ‘resident residents’; this deepens the tragedy of gradual forced displacement,” he added.

The new regulation forces residents to obtain magnetic cards and special entry permits to cross into their villages through al-Jib military checkpoint, referred to in Hebrew as the Givat Ze’ev checkpoint. Al-Rifai added:

Attorney Ziad Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER), explained that the “issue of special permits is not new in Jerusalem.”7 Israel previously annexed lands in the ‘Anata area and some neighborhoods in Bethlehem, and residents were not granted Israeli permanent-resident identity cards; rather, they only received entry permits. If Israel annexes the area around Beit Iksa, it will facilitate the issuance of permits, but the residents will remain strangers in their own land; Israel can consider Palestinian residents as strangers or absentees at any moment. This is the danger of their intent to annex land without residents.

Moreover, on September 21, 2025, the Popular National Congress in Jerusalem released a press release in al-Qudsnewspaper stressing that “this arbitrary and racist step will sever these towns from their neighbors and severely impede their social, economic, and educational development.”8 “This means placing them in an isolated ghetto, imposing a harsh reality on them that is difficult to live with. This is what Israel aims for, hoping to displace these residents after they reach a dead end in their daily lives.”9

The only entrance to many villages northwest of Jerusalem is a tunnel under the settlement road that the Israelis use. Under it is another tunnel for Palestinian residents of those villages. If this tunnel is closed, the villages will remain completely isolated from the rest of Palestine and the world, which happened last month when the Israeli army closed the tunnel after two young men from one of the northwest villages opened fire on Israelis at a bus station in the Ramot settlement, killing 6 people and injuring 12.10

With their continuous and immoral regulations, Israeli authorities are obstructing Palestinians’ movement and systematically hindering their lives.