Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank are choking the Palestinian economy

In the colony of Rujeib, southeast of Nablus successful the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian-owned dairy workplace suffered a terrible stroke erstwhile a regular shipment of earthy beverage was delayed astatine an Israeli subject checkpoint.

Al-Kamel Dairy Factory, established successful 2022, has 2 organisation trucks permanently parked successful its gait owed to a crisp diminution successful marketplace request and mobility issues.

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The crushed for this is the proliferation of subject roadblocks crossed the occupied West Bank since Israel’s genocidal warfare connected Gaza began successful October 2023.

These checkpoints were established to support Israel’s ongoing concern of the West Bank and to defender Israeli settlements, considered amerciable nether planetary law. This has coincided with a question of pogroms by Israeli settlers connected Palestinian towns and villages.

There are astir 925 checkpoints and subject gates crossed the occupied West Bank, 147 located successful the Nablus governorate, which is Al-Kamel’s superior market, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC).

There has been a driblet of much than 50 percent successful transport question successful the occupied West Bank since the onset of the genocidal warfare connected Gaza.

The disruptions caused by question obstructions successful the occupied Palestinian territory person severely inflated accumulation and transport costs for Palestinian companies. Al-Kamel has seen income diminution by 30 to 40 percent, forcing the institution to laic disconnected astatine slightest 12 workers.

“Since the opening of the company’s establishment, determination were respective challenges, and among the astir salient of these challenges were the checkpoints and gates dispersed crossed the West Bank, and particularly the metropolis of Nablus,” Dweikat told Al Jazeera.

“There is simply a terrible siege connected the metropolis of Nablus, arsenic you tin hardly find an entranceway to the metropolis of Nablus without a imperishable oregon semi-permanent checkpoint. These checkpoints person led to obstructing question and expanding transport costs, which needfully reflects connected the product’s terms and accumulation costs.”

People hold astatine a Hawara checkpoint adjacent Nablus aft it was closed pursuing a shooting successful the occupied West Bank, February 26, 2023 [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]

High unemployment rates, peculiarly aft the suspension of enactment permits for Palestinian workers successful Israel during the genocidal warfare connected Gaza, and a alteration successful salaries, person each affected economical enactment successful the occupied West Bank.

“Unfortunately, successful airy of the atrocious economical concern we endure from owed to recession and economical contraction, factories sometimes cannot bespeak this summation successful outgo onto the citizen, due to the fact that the economical concern is primitively deteriorating,” Dweikat said.

Al-Kamel beverage trucks present hold for 2 to 3 hours to exit Nablus and for longer astatine surrounding checkpoints. For a commodity arsenic susceptible to spoilage arsenic milk, these delays are hugely costly for the company.

“We enactment successful the dairy products sector, which is simply a precise delicate assemblage that requires refrigerated trucks, and truthful the measurement of challenges is precise ample for us,” said Dweikat. “Frankly, we were forced to sacrifice galore of our customers located extracurricular the metropolis of Nablus arsenic a effect of these obstacles.”

At the Awarta checkpoint extracurricular Nablus, astir 2km from the factory, beverage trucks tin hold for up to 4 hours to walk through. Delays astatine checkpoints person seen 10 tonnes of Al-Kamel’s beverage spell to waste.

“In the end, erstwhile it is midday, we archer the driver: ‘That’s it, determination is nary longer country to exit … and this represents a existent information to the information of our employees successful airy of the deteriorating information situation,'” Dweikat said.

Empty markets

A March 2025 survey published by the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) provides an alarming investigation of the situation.

After monitoring 14 subject checkpoints, MAS recovered that hold times scope from 15 to 50 minutes, with the mean hold for trips extracurricular the Nablus governorate reaching 42 minutes – a 77.9 percent summation successful archetypal question time.

It is estimated that 191,146 moving hours are mislaid regular owed to these delays, costing the Palestinian system astir 2.8 cardinal shekels ($764,600) per day, oregon 62.2 cardinal shekels ($16.8m) a month.

Drivers are forced to screen other distances to bypass closed checkpoints, costing an estimated 71,000 shekels ($19,203) successful further substance daily.

This is affecting the section system successful Nablus badly, with Mansour Aliwi, a section spice merchant, describing the metropolis arsenic a shade town.

“Frankly, the situation is deepening period aft period owed to Israel’s closure of crossings and checkpoints, and the prevention of the introduction of Arab Israelis into the West Bank,” Aliwi told Al Jazeera. “We trust heavy connected shoppers from the agrarian areas and villages, but the checkpoints person prevented radical from arriving”.

The Israeli separation barrier, which cuts into the West Bank, is different large obstacle to mobility.

“The annexation and enlargement partition built by the concern authorities successful 2002 inactive isolates much than 295sq km [114sq miles] of citizens’ lands,” the CRRC said.

“If the concern authorities completes gathering the planned parts, it volition wholly isolate 560sq km [216sq miles], approaching 9 percent of the full onshore successful the West Bank.”

Palestinian concern writer Jafar Sadaqa told Al Jazeera that the repercussions of the checkpoints and restrictions connected question forestall workers from reaching their jobs and impact concern operations.

“The intensification of these checkpoints implicit the past 3 years has led to far-reaching consequences, specified arsenic the bankruptcy of companies and their cessation of operations, and subsequently the nonaccomplishment of jobs for thousands of workers and employees, pushing unemployment to unprecedented rates,” Sadaqa said.

“An system with severed ties cannot beryllium built. There is simply a implicit separation betwixt the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and a siege and isolation for each of them, not lone from each other, but besides from the extracurricular world.”

He believes the existent outgo goes beyond nonstop fiscal losses for businesses and workers successful the West Bank, but it means that economical maturation present is astir impossible.

“It is hard to cipher the full size of the nonaccomplishment successful the Palestinian system owed to these measures,” Sadaqa said.

“They are not constricted lone to nonstop fiscal losses resulting from preventing the question of individuals and goods, and the demolition of cultivation lands and facilities, but besides see the mislaid opportunities for the Palestinian system to exploit earthy and commercialized resources, and the prevention of immoderate anticipation to make determination and planetary economical relations.”