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Photo:
Masafer Yatta. Published by Maan News
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HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces chased Palestinian shepherds and detained one while they were herding their livestock in fields near Yatta City in the southern West Bank district of Hebron on Saturday.

Coordinator of a local popular committee against the separation wall and settlements, Rateb al-Jbour, told the Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned news agency Wafa that Israeli forces chased after shepherds in the Masafer Yatta area fields before they detaining one.

Al-Jbour said that Israeli forces claim that the fields are under a military training zone and therefore prevent shepherds from entering the area in an attempt to force Palestinian residents out of the area for the benefit of settlement construction.

Around 3,000 Israeli settlers live in illegal Jewish-only settlements in the Yatta region, according to the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The South Hebron Hills, known locally as Masafer Yatta, lie almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and security control since the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Masafer Yatta residents were expelled at the time of the establishment of a firing zone in the 1970s and were eventually allowed back following a long court battle, but are under the constant threat of being expelled or seeing their homes demolished.