Israel Seals Off West Bank and Gaza in Wake of Deadly Terror Attack in Tel Aviv
General closure begins midnight Thursday and will end midnight Sunday, after the holiday of Shavout, ( at least) military says.
Israeli soldiers walk near a temporary checkpoint at the entrance of the Palestinian village of Yatta in the occupied West Bank on June 9,2016.
The Israeli army imposed a closure on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip midnight on Thursday, in the wake of a deadly terror attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.Following Tel Aviv attack, Lieberman orders holding of terrorists' bodies indefinitely.Terrorist funerals in the past have sparked violence and encouragement to others to commit more of these lone wolf indiscriminate attacks on the innocent citizens of Zion.
The closure was scheduled to end midnight on Sunday, the Israeli army said in a statement, after the end of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot bit may be extended indefinitely..
Passage into Israel will be allowed only for humanitarian and medical reasons, per the decision of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. Worshippers that reside in Israel (including East Jerusalem) will be allowed into the Temple Mount compound for Friday prayer.From the west Bank absolutely not until further notice.
The attack at an upscale food and retail complex in central Tel Aviv claimed the lives of four and left several wounded. The assailants, two cousins from the West Bank village of Yatta, were apprehended by law enforcement shortly after the attack.
Israel Police and forensics experts at the scene of the attack at the Sarona marketplace complex in Tel Aviv, June 9, 2016.Tomer Appelbaum
Following the attack, all permits given to Palestinians for Ramadan were suspended. These include some 83,000 permits, most of them to visit family in Israel. Permits for Gaza residents to pray at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have also been suspended. At the same time, the assailants' hometown has been placed under closure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying that the “attack was carried out by people who don’t value life." Lieberman, who was installed as defense minister last week, said: “This is not the time for declarations, but we will do what is required.”
The U.S. State Department urged Israel on Thursday not to punish innocent Palestinians for the attack."We understand the Israeli government's desire to protect its citizens ... and we strongly support that right, but we would hope that any measures it takes are designed to also take into consideration the impact on Palestinian citizens that are trying to go about their daily lives," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news briefing.
Yatta or Yattah (Arabic: يطّا) is a Palestinian city located in the Hebron Governorate in the West Bank approximately 8 km south of the city of Hebron in the West Bank.According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 64,277 in 2016.
History
Located on a large, ancient hilltop, Yatta has been identified with the site of the Biblical town of Juttah. In 1931, a Jewish burial complex dating to the 2nd century AD was found in the town .Eusebius (4th century) wrote that Yatta was "a very large village of Jews eighteen miles south of Beit Guvrin." Some Palestinian residents of the town believe they originate from the Jewish kingdom of Khaybar in the south-western Arabian peninsula and are descended from the Jewish tribes of Arabia. Research by Yitzhak Ben Zvi in 1928 also suggested that three out of the six extended families in Yatta belonged to the "Mehamra" group and possibly descended from an Jewish Arab tribe.
Ottoman era
Yatta, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the censusof 1596 the village appeared to be in the Nahiya of Halil of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 127 families, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, goats and bee-hives.
In 1838, Edward Robinson passed by, and noted that Yatta had the "appearance of a large modern Mohammedan town, on low eminence, with trees around."[9]
In July 1863 Victor Guérin visited Youttha. He described it as a village of 2000 inhabitants, but at least half were living in tents, scattered in the all over, partly to finish the harvest, partly to avoid themilitary recruiters active in the area. In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Yatta as being a "large village standing high on a ridge. It is largely built of stone. The water supply is from cisterns. On the south there are rock-cut tombs, and rock wine-presses are found all round the village. The neighborhood is extremely stony; south of the village are scattered olives, which are conspicuous objects; on the west, a little lower under a cliff, is a small olive yard in which the camp of the Survey party was pitched in 1874; to the south-west of camp were a few figs. The inhabitants are very rich in flocks; the village owned, it was said, 17,000 sheep, beside goats, cows, camels, horses, and donkeys. The Sheikh alone had 250 sheep. South of the village are several tombs; one has a shallow semicircular arch cut above a small square entrance. West of the village and of el Muturrif is a very fine rock-cut wine-press. A second occurs north of the village."
British Mandate era
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Yatta had a population 3,179; all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 4,034, still all Muslims.
In 1945 the population of Yatta was 5,260, all Arabs, and the land area was 174,172 dunams according to an official land and population survey. 3,254 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 67,498 used for cereals, while 216 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
1948–67
In the wake of the 1948 War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Yatta came under Jordanian rule.
Post-1967
Elderly men in Yatta, 2012
After the Six Day War in 1967 war, Yatta feel under Israeli control, along with the rest of the West Bank. In terms of the Oslo Accords Yatta now falls under administrative control of the Palestinian Authority. http://www.btselem.org/map
At least seven Palestinians were killed in Yatta during the Second Intifada in different incidents from 2002-04.
![[2009_Apr_Beach_Img15.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE-FwKOmE3M-pqdT-ffSC2AaQifh1fU8vNX7GB7ituXPs-LgDNCLfgWMwtYvw3Ts36kxA0omzJKpqehPEajjAbr9kN3rpjnU4sT2ZNb1frb_k7Q1JcJ7_6HAfPi6H-AtPSGNKls9lUWw01/s1600/2009_Apr_Beach_Img15.jpg)
