This article was originally published by Palestine News Network and is republished with permission.

Israeli forces stepped up operations to flatten the land in several areas of the Bethlehem District for settlement expansion and Wall construction.

On Sunday Road 60, intended for settlers but possible for Palestinians to use between Hebron and Bethlehem as the other routes have been destroyed, was closed for four hours. The increase in Israeli destruction of this area of the West Bank was referred to as appearing "frenzied."

A new street is in the works, one that will take a meandering route around the settlements that have been imposed and through gates in the Wall. It will link the city of Bethlehem and the western villages. Road 60 will become entirely shut-off, only for use by Israeli settlers living on confiscated Bethlehem and Hebron lands to reach Jerusalem.

The road itself was built on the lands of those districts and the towns of Beit Jala and Al Khader, which will both be hemmed in by the Wall and settlements. Another route is being created straight through the towns for settlers only.

Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses report that yesterday military bulldozers, described as "huge," began during the early morning hours of Sunday. They bulldozed lands belonging to the town of Al Khader where the settler Road 60 has already been built. A heavily armed military presence stood guard while the bulldozers razed the land and soldiers blasted rocks.

Israeli forces closed the street for over four hours while conducting these dredging operations which will lead to a new tunnel on Al Khader lands to bypass the Wall and will go 52 kilometers into the Bethlehem District.

Concurrent to the destruction in southwestern Bethlehem's town of Al Khader, Israeli military bulldozers destroyed the area around the Islamic Waqf in northern Bethlehem.

That part of the city has been besieged on three sides by Wall, turning the once thriving neighborhood into an isolated waste land. Most of the shops and homes have either been prohibited from nearing or destroyed. However some families are still trying to live in their homes, but are subject to the harshest of measures.

The specific bulldozing around the Waqf on Sunday morning came with unclear motives to residents of the houses trapped either inside or outside, unable to move for two hours.