While the world's attention is on the U.S.-Israel-Iran war, the Israeli military has placed the West Bank under a functional lockdown. Checkpoints in and out of most major cities are closed, and Palestinians have been left to look for other travel arrangements. Some residents who spoke with Truthout said they traveled for hours through village back roads in an attempt to reach their destinations.
The Israeli army announced this at 12:00 local time, although according to the text of the agreement, it happened automatically earlier in the morning when Benjamin Netanyahu's government voted by a large majority to give the green light to the first phase of Donald Trump's peace plan. The troops have, in fact, already completed their partial withdrawal to a position from which they will still control half of Gaza,
To someespecially undocumented immigrants the Guard presence is disconcerting at best, terrifying at worst, wrote Parker and Youssef, claiming it was clear that almost no one felt particularly good about the arrangement: not the National Guardsmen, many of whom clearly didn't want to be there, leaving their families and jobs in order to spread mulch and pick up trash; and not the residents, many of whom were furious with the occupation of their city or, worse, terrified of what the military's presence portended for them and their loved ones.
