On Tuesday, 29 September 2020, at around 11:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived at the community of Khirbet ‘Atuf in the northern Jordan Valley and confiscated a car from a resident of al-‘Aqqabah, a village in Tubas District, on the grounds that he was in a “closed military zone”. They ordered the owner to drive the car to the Sa’ura military camp.
The same day, at around 9:30 P.M., troops entered the community of al-‘Aqabah in the northern Jordan Valley – 30 soldiers on foot and others in two military vehicles. The soldiers trained within the village until midnight, some moving among the houses and others firing tank shells in the vicinity. In 1999, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned the High Court of Justice on behalf of the residents against repeated military training within the village, which caused injury to several residents. Following the petition, the military established procedures restricting training in the area of the village, without prohibiting it altogether. The procedures forbid training with live fire in the area and movement among the village homes. In practice, they have been violated several times over the years – and again this week.