Two Weeks Under Siege in Madama: Schools and Hospitals Cut Off, the Olive Season Ruined
Madama is a village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Since October 11, the Israeli army has blocked all four of the village's entrances with earthen barriers, citing “security reasons”. For the more than 2,500 residents, the siege has all but stopped travel to work, schools and hospitals, and has also blocked the delivery of essential supplies.
Wail Qut, 42, works as a legal consultant for the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center in Ramallah and used to commute there daily. He has now been stuck at home for more than two weeks. According to Qut, the Israeli military has told residents the restrictions will remain until Palestinian farmers stop trying to access their land, particularly in the northern part of the village, where an illegal settler outpost is located.
On October 20, the army briefly opened the northern entrance for a few hours before closing it again. In the meantime, residents had cleared a rough, unpaved dirt track between Madama and Asira as a makeshift way out. Qut used it once to reach Ramallah for urgent case files. He called it “a dangerous gamble”: settlers swarm the area, and the path is not passable for most vehicles.
Whenever residents tried to leave via that route, the army deployed a drone to monitor them, residents say. Soldiers also attacked residents and fired sound grenades and tear gas canisters to force them back. The soldiers subsequently blocked the dirt track itself, cutting off the only small opening that had allowed some people to leave. Qut was stranded in Ramallah for days and only got home after learning that the northern entrance had been briefly reopened.
The closure has coincided with bulldozing operations that residents say have destroyed agricultural land and uprooted hundreds of olive trees. The timing could hardly be worse: it is the annual olive harvest season, a vital source of income for local farmers already struggling to access their land because of Israeli restrictions. Locals have described the scenes as “horrific”.
Rami Nassar, head of the Madama Village Council, says the village spans about 340 hectares (840 acres). Israel seized village land in the 1980s for the illegal Yitzhar settlement, he says, and another portion was taken in the 1990s to build Route 60, a settler-only road that now restricts residents' access to their farmland.
Last April, Nassar says, settlers established an illegal pastoral outpost northwest of the village, near the al-Murabbaa checkpoint. Since then, he says, settlers have been siphoning electricity and water from the village's utility networks and destroying crops. Last July, he adds, settler bulldozers operating under army protection levelled an estimated 57 hectares (140 acres) in the northwest of the village and uprooted hundreds of mature, fruit-bearing olive trees.
During the current harvest, Nassar says, soldiers have chased farmers from their fields, while settlers have stolen both harvested olives and farming equipment from those who managed to reach their land. “The olive harvest season has come to an end for the people of Madama, a season they rely on entirely, especially given their harsh living conditions. Every year, the harvest felt like a celebration; now, all we see is them bulldozing and uprooting our trees,” he said.
The closures have hit medical care and basic movement hardest, blocking residents from work, schools and hospitals and stopping supplies such as cooking gas. Nassar recalled that a few days ago a resident suffered a heart attack. As the village doctor, he had to carry the man over the earthen berms and through olive groves and steep slopes, travelling by private car between several villages to reach a nearby hospital — a journey that took over two hours.
Education has been badly disrupted too. Combined with restrictions on staff movement, the blockade has deprived thousands of students of schooling. Three schools in Madama, Burin and Asira switched to remote learning for three days after the closure began; as it dragged on, students and teachers were eventually forced to cross the earthen barriers on foot to reach their schools.
Maryam Rayan, 48, principal of al-Fayha Kindergarten in Asira, says 35 of her enrolled children live in Madama. She lives in neighbouring Burin; the trip through Madama to Asira normally takes no more than eight minutes, but now takes more than an hour and a half. The kindergarten bus stops near the barrier once it is confirmed no soldiers or settlers are present, and children arrive on a local shuttle from inside the village; Rayan crosses the barrier on foot and helps them over one by one — and repeats the process on the way back. In 25 years in education, she says, she has never faced anything like it, and she feels tense and fearful throughout the day, responsible as she is for the lives of 135 children while the streets are filled with soldiers or settlers.
On Thursday, Israel reopened Madama's northern entrance, though the other entrances remain shut and Palestinians expect it could be closed again at any moment. On Friday, after an attack in Hebron killed two soldiers, Israel began imposing widespread movement restrictions across the West Bank, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered preparations for a complete lockdown and a large-scale operation throughout the occupied territory — raising fears that Madama's siege is about to tighten further.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says it had identified 925 physical obstacles restricting Palestinian movement in the West Bank by December 2025, including 167 earth mounds, collectively affecting about 3.4 million Palestinians. The agency notes that these obstacles sever connections between villages, towns and main roads, forcing longer detours and limiting access to workplaces, essential services and farmland. The Israeli military was asked for comment but has yet to respond. For the people of Madama, meanwhile, every day begins with the same uncertainty: no one knows when the entrances will truly open again.
