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SALFIT (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces set up military checkpoints at the entrances of two Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, locals told Ma’an.

Said Zeidan, the mayor of Deir Istiya in the central West Bank district of Salfit, told Ma’an that Israeli forces arrived in military jeeps on Monday evening after local youth closed the main entrance of the village with burning tires.

The soldiers then set up a military checkpoint at the entrance of Deir Istiya and inspected all Palestinian vehicles going through, causing heavy traffic.

Meanwhile, in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, locals reported that Israeli soldiers had put up a checkpoint at the entrance of the village of Sair, after initially sealing it with an iron gate, inspecting the IDs of all passengers in vehicles seeking to use the road.

Israeli forces were reportedly still preventing the passage of vehicles through the entrance of Sair as of Tuesday morning.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that they were looking into the reports.

Palestinian communities are routinely subjected to arbitrary road closures by Israeli military forces for purported "security reasons," an act which rights groups have denounced as amounting to collective punishment.

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