Palestinians’ lives blocked by checkpoints

One of the most visible and disturbing symbols of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, one that makes the hardships of the Palestinians living there even more unbearable, are the checkpoints. The long wait to cross them, or often to be turned back, hinders people from getting to work, from getting to a medical appointment on time, from seeing family and friends or from reaching school. But above all it creates a strong sense of humiliation.

If you are a Palestinian, regardless of age or gender, you are at the mercy of young soldiers, often teenagers, who, after hours of making you wait, can decide whether you can continue to your destination. You can stand there for hours on end exposed to the elements — in the scorching summer heat or the cold and muddy conditions of the winter — enduring this routine that is at least as much about grinding the local population into submission as it is about security.

To be fair, many soldiers see their time on checkpoint duty as the worst part of their service because they feel the mental burden that comes with these daily episodes of friction with the local population. I recall a conversation with a young soldier who told me that the thought of the power asymmetry between himself, armed to the teeth, and the civilians whose fear he could see in their eyes while they presented their IDs and begged him to let them pass kept him awake at night. It made it even more difficult, he said, if they were frail or sick or on their way to receive medical treatment, sometimes even for a lifesaving procedure, or if they were pregnant and on the way to give birth.

This routine is at least as much about grinding the local population into submission as it is about security

Yossi Mekelberg

However, there are also those soldiers who abuse this position of power — and they are usually able to do so with complete impunity. Above all, checkpoints represent the banal routine of an oppressive occupation that is a blight on the daily lives of ordinary people, as well as demonstrating the asymmetric power relations between the occupiers and the occupied.

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, three Jewish Jerusalemite women of conscience, after encountering a military checkpoint in the West Bank for the first time, founded a nongovernmental organization and named it Machsom Watch (Checkpoint Watch). There are now 500 women activists who expose and document the ills of the occupation, but above all the mushrooming number of checkpoints and how they operate.

For instance, they recently reported that on the first Friday of Ramadan, people who braved the wet weather from across the West Bank to reach the infamous Qalandiya Checkpoint, in the faint hope of reaching Jerusalem for prayers, were all turned back. Worse, they described the experience as follows: “Unlike previous Ramadan Fridays, (on this day) no attempts were made to prettify toughness of heart, no holiday greetings from the ruler, no (relaxing of the rules) like humanitarian passage and/or lighter restrictions for women, children and the elderly. All people, rejected regardless of gender, age and state of health, no longer had the right to observe their faith and pray at their holy shrine.”

In other words, not a semblance of pretense anymore that checkpoints are a necessary evil of Israel’s security within the Green Line; instead, they are simply about control and treating the entire Palestinian population as the enemy.

The network of checkpoints, dozens of them permanent, others temporary, was spread out all over the West Bank well before Oct. 7, 2023, and since then many more have been appearing suddenly and with no warning, immediately disrupting lives.

In early 2023, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 645 physical obstacles in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, ranging from 49 checkpoints constantly staffed by Israeli forces or private security companies to other occasionally staffed roadblocks, earth mounds, road gates, road barriers and trenches.

The enormous number of restrictions suggests that the balance between security and oppression has long since tilted toward the latter

Yossi Mekelberg

This figure did not include the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron, where there are dozens more checkpoints and obstacles, many equipped with metal detectors, surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology, and with facilities for detention and interrogation. To ensure the security of about 1,000 ultra-extremist settlers, the movements of at least 30,000 Palestinians who live in the Israeli-controlled part of the city have been turned into a living hell. And all these restrictions and obstacles are for the benefit of those who declare that under no circumstances do they wish for peaceful coexistence between equals in this city.

This extreme situation epitomizes the broader phenomenon of limiting the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the West Bank and the situation has worsened since the Oct. 7 attacks. Almost 100 more obstacles have been erected since then. This is in addition to the 712 km-long separation barrier, which Israel began building in 2002 and is the single largest obstacle to the free movement of Palestinians, but not Israelis.

Admittedly, Israel began erecting this barrier during the Second Intifada, with the aim of containing terrorist attacks inside Israel, but this does not explain why it was not built along the Green Line. Instead, about 85 percent of the barrier’s route winds through the West Bank, which is occupied by Israel, and restricts and disrupts the freedom of movement of Palestinians either permanently or irregularly. The original idea might have been security, but with the influence of the leaders of the settlements and their political allies, it has become more an instrument to further a future annexation.

By now, the enormous number of restrictions by checkpoints that prevent, for instance, farmers from cultivating their land and people from getting to work or to worship, let alone the danger of being arrested and even shot should they be suspected of not following the instructions of those guarding the checkpoints, suggests that the balance between security and oppression has long since tilted toward the latter.

When ambulances are treated at checkpoints like any other vehicle, as some evidence suggests, this is deliberately reckless and is simply about demonstrating who rules the roost in this land. For most Palestinians, this is their only engagement with Israelis and it leaves with them an extremely bad taste in their mouth. While the morality, or more accurately the immorality, of this situation does not need much elaboration, it leaves open the question: How do those who design and impose these policies think that they could possibly be serving Israel’s interests?

After all, they only increase resentment, damage the economy and leave many Palestinians feeling humiliated. But the messianic ultranationalists, in addition to satisfying their power trip, believe that all this expedites annexation and even transfer, leaving peace and reconciliation between the two peoples so much harder to achieve.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg