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Photo:
Scene in Deis Istiya. Published by IMEMC News
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by IMEMC News
Oct 13, 2025

At dawn on Monday, Israeli occupation forces invaded the town of Deir Istiya, west of Salfit in the central West Bank, launching a wide-scale abduction campaign that targeted multiple families as they stormed homes, vandalized property, and abducted 14 Palestinian civilians, including fathers and their sons.

Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers stormed and ransacked homes during the invasion, damaging furniture, and personal belongings, before abducting the Palestinians.

The soldiers abducted Rafe’ Awad along with his son Rafiq, Jamil Komesh and his son Ahmad, Samer Abdul-Rahman Salman and his two sons, Abdul-Rahman and Ali, Monjed and his brother Majdi Mithqal Al-Qad, Mahmoud Abdul Qader Aqel and his son Hamza, Karim Sa’ad Makhalfa, in addition to Mahmoud Awad Al-Khatib and his son Rami.

It is worth mentioning that Israeli forces have sealed the town’s main entrance with iron gates since Friday evening, effectively imposing a blockade on Deir Istiya.

The closure has severely restricted movement, isolating residents and obstructing access to medical care, schools, and farmland.

This latest invasion follows a broader pattern of intensified military and colonial violations in the Salfit Governorate.

Just days earlier, illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers established a new outpost on stolen land west of Deir Istiya, part of a strategic expansion between Deir Istiya and Qarawat Bani Hassan.

The area is densely planted with olive trees, and the presence of colonizers poses a direct threat to Palestinian harvesters.

On Sunday, illegal Israeli colonizers shot a Palestinian man near Hebron and carried out a series of attacks against citizens in the governorates of Ramallah, and Jerusalem.

In addition, Israeli colonizers established a new illegal colonialist outpost of the Evyatar settlement on top of Sbeih Mountain in the town of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank’s northern part.

On Saturday, Israeli paramilitary colonizers launched coordinated assaults against Palestinian olive harvesters in several areas of the occupied West Bank, escalating a pattern of seasonal violence that intensifies each year during the olive harvest.

On Friday night, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian young man, Mohammad Adnan Yousef Salama, 25, and wounded a child near the Cinema Roundabout in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

On Friday evening, Israeli colonizers carried out numerous assaults across multiple areas of the occupied West Bank, targeting Palestinian civilians and property in the Northern Plains region and Tubas in northeastern region of the West Bank.

On Friday morning, Israeli colonizers attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in Beita, south of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, before Israeli soldiers fired gas bombs at the famers, and assaulted some of them, causing several injuries.

Since October 7, 2023, colonizers have carried out 7,154 documented attacks against Palestinians and their property, resulting in the killing of 34 civilians and the forced displacement of 33 Bedouin communities.

These communities, comprising 455 families and 2,853 individuals, have been uprooted from their homes and relocated under duress, according to the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission.

The sustained violence has intensified fear and instability throughout the region, with vulnerable communities facing the greatest risk. Local authorities and human rights organizations continue to urge the international community to intervene, calling for protective measures and legal accountability to prevent further harm.

Human rights organizations have condemned the ongoing collective punishment and land seizures in the region, citing violations of international law, including Articles 33, 49, 53 and 147,of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibit forced transfers, destruction of civilian property, and acts of terror against protected populations, and classify pillage as a war crime.

All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.

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