At an accelerating pace, the Israeli occupation is tightening its grip on the Palestinians of the West Bank, to the point where the West Bank has turned into ghettos resembling prisons, linked by some form of barriers and obstacles.
At an accelerating pace, the Israeli occupation is tightening its grip on the Palestinians of the West Bank, to the point where the West Bank has turned into ghettos resembling prisons, linked by some form of barriers and obstacles.
The Israeli occupation subjects Palestinians to a set of restrictions and procedures that limit their movement, reaching the point of imprisoning them in their homes by imposing a curfew on them, without heeding the warnings of human rights institutions and international bodies.
At a time when the occupation dominates the entire area called “C” according to the Oslo Accords, which is estimated at about 61% of the area of the West Bank, the population is not allowed freedom of movement in the remaining percentage, which has become a divided geographical area.
Control system:
On its website, B’Tselem describes the imposition of restrictions on the movement and mobility of Palestinians living in the occupied territories as: “one of the central tools used by Israel for the purpose of implementing the occupation regime and controlling the Palestinian population.”
It says: These restrictions are imposed on the movement of Palestinians within the occupied territories themselves, on their movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, on their entry into Jerusalem and Israel, and on their travel outside the country, in exchange for unlimited facilities for the settlers.
According to B’Tselem, this reality forces Palestinians to live in constant uncertainty, which makes it difficult for them to carry out the simplest tasks, in addition to long hours of waiting at checkpoints, accompanied by disabilities and humiliation at the hands of soldiers.
Effect of restrictions:
Doctors Without Borders says: In cases of medical emergencies, restrictions on movement may lead to fatal repercussions, noting that the movement of ambulances is obstructed and targeted.
She adds – in a series of reports on her website – that since the start of the Israeli war on the people of Gaza on October 7, 2023, the restrictions imposed by Israeli forces in the West Bank have increased significantly, explaining that they often face interruptions in their mobile clinic services, as they are prevented from entering certain areas or face movement restrictions on Israeli official holidays.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has previously warned that access to health care in the West Bank is deteriorating due to Israeli occupation restrictions imposed on freedom of movement, as well as obstructing Palestinian access to basic services and workplaces.
Below we summarize the most prominent forms of Israeli restrictions imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank, according to reports by the United Nations and Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations:
Barriers:
There are many forms of barriers, including military checkpoints manned by occupation soldiers, surprise ones, and fixed concrete barriers that may be concrete, dirt, iron gates, or trenches, and their number is about 898. They impede the movement of individuals, goods, patients, students, and others, in addition to turning Palestinian communities into cantons and ghettos.
Most of the entrances to villages, towns, cities and camps are now closed with locked iron gates most of the time, and therefore residents are forced to move between the two sides of the gates on foot, while military checkpoints often separate the governorates.
There are basic barriers that divide the West Bank, including: the Zaatara checkpoint between Nablus and Ramallah, the Container checkpoint east of Jerusalem, which separates the south of the West Bank from its center, and the Hamra checkpoint, which restricts entry to the Jordan Valley area.
Insulating wall:
The occupation began erecting the separation wall at the expense of the West Bank lands between the 48 territories and the West Bank since 2002, to date isolating more than 295 square kilometers of Palestinian lands.
Along the wall, the occupation prevents the movement of Palestinians on both sides of it, including the owners of lands annexed by the wall, and in rare cases allows their owners to access them.
The occupation also establishes strict gates and crossings at the wall, which Palestinians, especially workers, are not allowed to use except under special pass permits issued by the occupation authorities.
Settlements:
The settlements and settlement blocs form what resemble belts for Palestinian cities and villages, surrounded by areas of influence that Palestinians are prohibited from using for either transportation or servicing their agricultural lands.
The number of settlers in the West Bank is estimated at about 770 thousand settlers, stationed in 180 settlements and 256 settlement outposts, including 136 agricultural and pastoral outposts that control more than 480 thousand dunums (a dunum equals a thousand square metres), equivalent to 3 times the building area of existing settlements, according to the Palestinian Wall Authority.
According to United Nations reports, the percentage of areas prohibited to Palestinians in the West Bank constitutes 61% due to the allocation of lands to Israeli settlements and the local and regional councils of the settlements.
Closed areas:
The occupation closes some areas of the West Bank, including the center of Hebron, restricts the movement of its residents, and prevents Palestinians from outside it from entering, by deploying more than 120 obstacles, including gates, military barriers, and physical obstacles.
Doctors Without Borders says that it has been forced several times to cancel visits to the area, where it treats between 60 and 70 patients weekly.
Since 1994, after settler Baruch Goldstein committed a massacre against worshipers in the Ibrahimi Mosque, the occupation authorities forced the owners of about 800 stores to close them and they remain closed to this day, most of which have been placed with physical and military barriers preventing access to them.
Immediately after the start of the aggression against Gaza on October 7, 2023, the occupation imposed a curfew in central Hebron and prevented the movement of about 750 families. The curfew continued for about two weeks before it gradually eased, until the day became limited to the night hours and on Fridays, Saturdays, and Jewish holidays.
Also in Jerusalem, the occupation deploys its checkpoints throughout the Old City, at its gates, at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and at the entrances to Palestinian towns. It also keeps dozens away from Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Old City.
In parallel, it cannot be overlooked that dozens of Palestinians in Jerusalem are subjected to home detention and are required to wear electronic bracelets attached to their feet, while about 9,900 prisoners remain in detention in natural prisons.
Crossings:
In the West Bank, Israel controls all entry and exit crossings, including those leading to Jerusalem and Jordan. It exploits this control not only to prevent the entry of Palestinians into the areas under its sovereignty, but also to monitor any exit for them from the West Bank to outside the country, which it often prevents them from doing.
Inside Jerusalem, Israel has erected barriers similar to international crossings, separating the Palestinian neighborhoods located behind the wall from the rest of the city, and forcing 140,000 Palestinian residents of the city to cross them in order to enter a city of which they are residents.
Forbidden streets:
Road No. 60 constitutes a major lifeline between the north and south of the West Bank, but most of the exits from Palestinian cities and villages leading to it are closed, and therefore Palestinians are forced to search for alternatives, which are usually longer, to enter the road and travel north or south.
According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the restrictions imposed on movement within the West Bank institutionalized the separation between settlers and Palestinians, explaining that the system of main streets in the West Bank was built to serve the settlers on lands confiscated from the Palestinians. Israel also created an alternative street system designated for Palestinians only and called “Fabric of Life Streets,” which were also built on lands confiscated from the Palestinians. This system includes tunnels and bypass streets.
She refers to Street No. 443, which connects the city of Jerusalem to the Modi’in settlement and Tel Aviv, and says that Palestinians are completely prohibited from using it, and that some streets have been designated exclusively for settlers.
According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel built streets with a length of 49 kilometers, including 43 tunnels and underground passages, explaining that they allow transportation between the Palestinian “islands” it created, “but they prevent geographic communication between towns, which enables it to easily cut off transportation between different areas within the West Bank.”
The total length of the streets that Israel completely prohibits Palestinians from using is approximately 40 km, including 7 km inside the city of Hebron, in the vicinity of the settlements established by Israel. In addition, there are 20 km where partial restrictions are imposed on Palestinian crossing, according to data from B’Tselem until 2017, and they certainly changed after October 2023.
Permit system:
Every Palestinian who is forced to go to the lands of 1948, whether for work, treatment, to visit his relatives, for the purpose of trade, to access his lands isolated by the wall, or to go to the Gaza Strip, must obtain a special permit from the occupation authorities, limited to a specific period of time, and withheld from most Palestinians under security pretexts.
Electronic portals and numbers
The occupation uses electronic gates in the West Bank, especially at the entrance to the Ibrahimi Mosque, and worshipers must enter them at every prayer.
It also creates digital lists for residents of closed areas, such as in Al-Shuhada Street and the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron, and each of them must save his number to use when entering and exiting, and non-residents are prohibited from visiting them, even if they are relatives. The situation is repeated in pockets surrounded by a wall, such as the home of the Gharib family in the village of Beit Ijza, west of Jerusalem, where the occupation has surrounded it with walls and barbed wire and installed an electric gate controlled remotely at its entrance.
Siege:
The occupation uses the siege as a means to restrict the freedom of Palestinians, and this often happens on Jewish holidays, as it imposes a security cordon in the north of the West Bank. This means closing all crossings leading to the 1948 territories, tightening procedures at the West Bank checkpoints, and intensifying the incursions into the Palestinian areas.
Since January 21, it has also besieged camps in the northern West Bank, evacuating them of their residents and preventing their return.
Military areas and firing zones
The occupation has classified large areas, constituting about 18% of the area of the West Bank, which amounts to about 5,660 square kilometers, as “firing” zones for conducting its military training, or issued military orders to close them for various pretexts, concentrated in Musafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley area.
The military zones include army camps distributed in the West Bank and surrounding measures that prevent the freedom of movement of the Palestinian population.
Dozens of military watchtowers built of concrete and manned by soldiers are also spread across the West Bank, often at the main entrances to Palestinian areas and near settlements. From time to time, soldiers erect checkpoints that intercept Palestinian vehicles.