For 24 consecutive days, Israeli Occupation Forces continue to lay siege on the Palestinian village of Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, as part of an aggressive campaign launched against the community by the military. Ever since the siege was imposed on 12 May 2023, main access points to the village were sealed shut with Israeli Occupation Forces’ military vehicles, with occasional closures of sub-routes, which continues to severely affect the Palestinians’ ability to reach their schools, workplaces, service centers, and hinders their freedom of movement. As military raids target the village on a daily basis, tens of Palestinian men, women, children, and the elderly have been so far arrested, while some of them were later released. Till the moment of drafting this report, 46 Palestinians remain in Israeli Occupation Forces’ custody and have not yet been released. During one of the raids to arrest Palestinians, one woman was forcibly used by Israeli Occupation Soldiers as a human shield before she was arrested. The woman was later released.

According to the head of Al-Mughayyir village council, in the early morning hours of Monday, heavily armed Occupation Foces raided the city around 2:30 AM (local time) and stormed Palestinians’ homes, arresting 15 of them, including two children and an elder man, who have not been released, yet. In addition, several demolition orders were issued against several structures in the village. The arrest campaign, which lasted for about two hours, ended with the rounding-up of all arrested Palestinians at the eastern entrance of the village before they were led to an unknown destination.

This aggressive siege that the Occupation Forces continue to lay against the village of Al-Mughayyir falls within the Israeli policy of collective punishment as daily raids involve the use of terrorizing and intimidation methods, threats, the use of Palestinians as human shields throughout the military operations, and occasionally conducting interrogations of arrested individuals on-ground right after their detainment. The Occupation Forces have recently intensified the use of such methods and their violations in Palestinian communities, as have already taken place in Aqbat Jaber Refugee Camp in Jericho, and Nur Shams Refugee Camp in Tulkarm.

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association calls on the international community to put pressure on the Occupation State to end the crime of collective punishment that it continuously practices against the Palestinian people in the form of mass arrest campaigns of Palestinians from inside their homes, intimidation, and large-scale raids of Palestinian communities.