Ramallah: For the eighth day in a row, Israel's security forces continued to encircle Jericho, tightening their control over it by setting up checkpoints at the city's entrances.

Similar checkpoints can be found all over the West Bank, where Palestinians encounter hours-long delays while Israeli forces search them and their vehicles.

The checks are seen by Palestinians as an act of humiliation that has less to do with security than it does with efforts to discourage Palestinians from planning anti-Israel demonstrations.

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Extremist Israeli settlers continue their daily atrocities against Palestinians despite these harsh measures, and neither the Israeli army nor police have intervened.

Two Palestinian brothers from Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, were beaten and had their car stolen by settlers on Saturday.

Basil Abu Harzan and his brother Wael were severely beaten by the settlers as they ploughed their field in Al-Shurafa, according to Fathi Hamdan, head of the village council. The brothers' car was then stolen by them.

He emphasised that the attacks were a part of the settlers' plan to occupy Palestinian land and convert it into pastures for their livestock by saying that the settlers fired shots into the air to intimidate onlookers.

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Several settlers attacked three brothers from Silwad on Friday while they were working in Deir Jarir, stole their survey equipment, and wrecked their personal vehicle.

On Saturday, after seizing his car and conducting a home raid, the Israeli army detained a young man from Silwad, which is east of Ramallah.

The Israeli military kept up its military restrictions at the Hamra checkpoint, which connects the West Bank's cities with the central, southern, and northern Jordan Valley, for the 22nd day in a row.

Palestinian sources claimed that Israeli soldiers stopped Palestinian vehicles at the checkpoint, searched them, and verified the identities of the passengers, significantly delaying their commutes to work.

More than three weeks ago, Israeli forces shut down the dirt roads in the area, which were crucial routes for farmers to get to their fields in the Jordan Valley as well as for transporting and selling agricultural goods outside of the area.

Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs Esmat Mansour told Arab News that Israel's recent military escalation in the West Bank was "surprising and unjustified" and that it was part of a collective punishment for what some Palestinian fighters had done during the previous few weeks of violence.

According to Mansour, the West Bank arrests of Palestinian activists serve to stifle the Palestinian response to Israeli aggression.

On Saturday, Israeli forces informed the Palestinians that a residential tent in the northern Jordan Valley had been taken down.

Israeli forces notified about the removal of the residential tent, a solar energy unit, a bathroom and a water tank in Khirbet Al-Deir, in the northern Jordan Valley, according to Moataz Bisharat, who oversees the settlement file in the Touba governorate.

An Israeli plan to expand a settlement outpost in the centre of Hebron and connect it with other outposts set up nearby was challenged by the municipality of Hebron in the southern West Bank before the Israeli Supreme Court.

The plan calls for seizing more than 70 buildings near the main Old City entrance. The properties, according to the municipality of Hebron, were controlled and inhabited by Palestinians under legal contracts.

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The document continued by stating that these transgressions "crimes against Palestinian citizens, the municipality, and the law" were being committed in an effort to "Judaize the Old City and empty it of its original Palestinian population."

The municipality stated that it would continue to fight in court to defend the Old City and its Palestinian Islamic heritage, adding that it would "expose all Israeli attempts to falsify history."