Description

JENIN (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces raided a private home in the northern West Bank town of Yabad and converted it into a military watch station on Friday morning.

Sobhi Ali Abu Bakr told a Ma'an correspondent in Jenin that he was surprised this morning when Israeli forces stormed his property and set up a military observation station in it before ascending to the roof to plant an Israeli flag atop it.

The house belonged to Abu Bakr, but he had prepared it for his son Firas to move in to.

In the last few months Yabad has witnessed a series of home invasions and takeovers to convert them into Israeli military watch points. These takeovers have occurred under the pretext of monitoring the activities of local youths who throw rocks at the vehicles of Israeli settlers' vehicles as they pass by on the nearby main road.

Local sources told the Ma'an correspondent that Israel forces had stormed the town at dawn on Friday morning and patrols had roamed the streets as troops deployed on foot around the town, especially in the Sahel neighborhood. Israeli forces were deployed in the town in the early morning hours.

The sources added that Israeli forces erected a military checkpoint at the eastern entrance to Yabad and another at the the Kufeirit junction and they prevented locals from leaving the village for a period of four hours.

This was the fourth time in a row over the last four days that Israeli forces had blocked off roads and had limited locals' freedom of movement.

Separately, Israeli forces stormed the town of Beit Qad east of Jenin just before midnight and handed a notification to meet with Israeli intelligence forces to Ahmad Robaiy, 23.

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.