SHOTLIST: RAMALLAH, WEST BANK, PALESTINE (MAY 9, 2025) (ANADOLU - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF METAL FENCE BEING CONSTRUCTED/ CONSTRUCTION WORKERS WELDING FENCE 2. VARIOUS WIDE SHOTS OF FENCE 3. FENCE/ CONSTRUCTION MACHINES AT SITE 4. CLOSE SHOTS OF FENCE (TWO SHOTS) 5. WIDE SHOT OF FARMING AREA LINED WITH FENCE ON ONE SIDE 6. LOCAL FARMER, WALID FUQAHA, RIDING DONKEY 7. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LOCAL FARMER, WALID FUQAHA SAYING: "By Allah, it has really affected us, regarding our land and several plots. We lost some entirely, completely destroyed. We cried like children in the fields. Was there anyone to support us? Some lands we were forcibly removed from... Lands we can no longer harvest. We’re now exposed to danger from the army and the settlers. You stay alert all the time. Like a bird that wishes the stone would stop in mid-air. A bird never used to get trapped, but now it feels doomed. It’s affected us in so many ways. You look at your farmland and you start to cry. There are lands we used to plant with soul and love, but now farming is a risk — from the army, from the settlers." There’s no one to rely on. You have no voice, no meaning, no one..." 8. VARIOUS OF FUQAHA RIDING DONKEY, CARRYING PLASTIC BOTTLES 9. WIDE SHOT OF FENCE/ PALESTINIAN MAN STANDING IN FRONT OF FENCE/ WORKER CONSTRUCTING FENCE (TWO SHOTS) 10. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LOCAL ACTIVIST AYED GHAFRI SAYING: "What is happening in Sinjil today is a coordinated partnership between the settlers, the occupation, and the occupation army to besiege the town and pressure it — to create a reality where the citizens are being chased within their own town. The Israeli army is now building a separation wall, turning the town of Sinjil into a closed prison, isolating 8,000 residents and cutting off all entrances and exits. There is now only one gate, controlled by a Zionist soldier who holds the key and opens or closes it whenever he wants. At the same time, while this wall suffocates the people and besieges the town, there is active settlement expansion in the area. The settlers are working to seize 8,000 dunums of Sinjil’s lands. Essentially, Sinjil is dying. It has lost around 70% of its land. The wall has also separated many Sinjil families — some now live outside the wall and cannot access their town. What is happening is, in truth, a crime carried out under an extremist Zionist government led by settlers like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir and others like them. The suffering experienced in Sinjil is being repeated in all the villages of the region and throughout the West Bank, especially near Route 60. It is part of a larger project to establish a settlers' state in the West Bank and eliminate any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state. This wall stretches for 1,500 meters in length and is 6 meters high. It confiscated 35 dunums of the town’s land under the pretext of a “military order.” When we tried to challenge this order and went to court, the matter was dismissed, because the order is a “military decision” — not subject to appeal. We are told, in effect, that we have no right even to protest."RAMALLAH, WEST BANK, PALESTINE - MAY 9: A new Israeli wire fence is being rapidly erected on the outskirts of Sinjil, a Palestinian town north of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank. The barrier -- 1,500 meters (4,921 feet) long and six meters (20 feet) high -- Palestinians say, is turning their hometown, home to nearly 6,000 people, into a walled prison controlled by a single Israeli soldier stationed at a locked gate. The structure runs along Route 60, a highway linking Ramallah and Nablus frequented by illegal Israeli settlers traveling between illegal settlements built on Palestinian land. - Partnership of occupation, illegal settlers “This is a coordinated operation between the Israeli army and illegal settlers,” said Ayed Ghafri, a local activist against settlement expansion. Ghafri emphasized that by it's actions the occupation is suffocating the town by fencing it in, cutting off farmland, and allowing illegal settlers to terrorize residents. Ghafri said the fence has already blocked side entrances to the town, destroyed about 30 dunams (7.4 acres) of Palestinian agricultural land, and effectively severed 70% of Sinjil’s land from its inhabitants. Some homes now lie outside the barrier, isolated from the rest of the town. He stressed that once a commercial hub, Sinjil now is a ghost town. - Life has become a prison For Walid Fuqaha, a 33-year-old farmer and herder, the wall has upended his daily routine. What used to be a few minutes of walk to his fields now takes more than half an hour, if he is even allowed to leave. "We are like a bird that wishes the stone would stop in mid-air. A bird never used to get trapped, but now it feels doomed." said the Palestinian man. Fuqaha says the fence is part of a broader settler strategy to drive Palestinians from their land. "Some lands we were forcibly removed from — lands we can no longer harvest. We’re now exposed to danger from the army and the settlers." he said. - Pattern of escalation Sinjil has faced increasing settler violence. In April, illegal settlers burned rural homes, torched vehicles, attacked residents, and killed a man by beating him. According to the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, these “buffer zones” around illegal settlements are becoming a new tool for land grabs masked as security measures. In April alone, Israeli forces and illegal settlers carried out 1,693 violations against Palestinians and their property across the occupied West Bank, including 341 attacks by illegal settlers. These attacks range from armed raids and land confiscation to tree uprooting, home demolitions, and road closures that fragment Palestinian geography. At least 961 Palestinians have been killed and over 7,000 others injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.