A five-metre-high metal fence slices across the eastern edge of Sinjil, a Palestinian town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Heavy steel gates and roadblocks seal off all but a single route in and out of the town, watched over by Israeli soldiers at guard posts.

“Sinjil is now a big prison,” said Mousa Shabaneh, 52, a father of seven, watching on in resignation as workers erected the fence through the middle of the nursery on the edge of the town where he planted trees for sale, his sole source of income.

“Of course, we’re now forbidden from going to the nursery. All the trees I had were burned and lost,” he said.

“In the end, they cut off our livelihood.”

Walls and checkpoints erected by Israeli forces have long been a part of day-to-day life for the nearly 3 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. But many now say that a dramatic increase in such barriers since the start of the offensive in Gaza has put towns and villages in a state of permanent siege.

Read the full story from Reuters here.