Israeli forces prevented Palestinians, including Palestinian Authority officials, from entering the Khan Al-Ahmar Bedouin village on Saturday afternoon.

Israeli forces obstructed a PA convoy which was on its way to Khan Al-Ahmar and briefly detained minister Walid Assaf, Head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee, as well as Mahmoud Al-Aloul, deputy head of the Fatah movement.

Witnesses said that Israeli forces denied access to Palestinians, journalists, activists in addition to these PA officials.

Israeli forces had set up several checkpoints on roads leading to the village earlier in the day and interrogated several Palestinian drivers and passengers.

INTERVIEW: Khan Al-Ahmar resident, ‘We are imprisoned here’

On 3 December Israeli occupation authorities issued a military order to extend the period of the closure of roads leading to the Bedouin village of Khan Al-Ahmar, which is under threat of demolition.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee said, at the time, that the Israeli military order seeks to seize Palestinian-owned lands for military purposes.

The closure will continue until 15 January.

The Israeli High Court approved the demolition of Khan Al-Ahmar last year leaving approximately 200 Palestinians living with the threat of being made homeless at any time.

Critics and human rights organisations argue that the demolition is part of an Israeli plan to expand the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Kfar Adummim and to create a region of Israeli control from Jerusalem almost to the Dead Sea, which would make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.