Mapping Israel’s 300 checkpoints: Where they are and how they work

EXPLAINER

Israel has unopen occupied West Bank crossings for a week, further restricting Palestinian question and beatified tract access.

Israel has sealed disconnected the occupied West Bank for a week, shutting its crossings and tightening restrictions connected Palestinian movement, citing the Jewish vacation of Sukkot.

Defence Minister Israel Katz connected Sunday ordered the closure connected the military’s recommendation, and it volition stay successful spot until Saturday.

Palestinians already look terrible restrictions connected their question owed to hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and barriers crossed the occupied territory. Now, controls astatine checkpoints and barriers crossed the territory volition tighten further, cutting disconnected entree to beatified sites specified arsenic the Al-Aqsa Mosque successful occupied East Jerusalem and the Ibrahimi Mosque successful Hebron successful the West Bank.

In the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate connected Sunday, Israeli forces blocked roads and unopen the entrances to Turmus Aya, Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh. In Yabroud, Ein Siniya and Jaba, soldiers acceptable up checkpoints to hunt vehicles and cheque IDs.

The closure besides bars Palestinians who inactive clasp permits to enactment successful Israel and its settlements, a workforce already sharply reduced since Israel’s genocidal warfare successful Gaza began successful October 2023. Only workers deemed indispensable are allowed into Israeli concern zones successful the West Bank.

(Al Jazeera)

How galore Palestinians enactment successful Israel?

For decades, Palestinians successful the West Bank person looked for enactment wrong Israel due to the fact that of precocious unemployment and debased wages astatine home, which are the effect of astir six decades of Israeli concern that has restricted their economy, onshore and movement.

The United Nations General Assembly passed a solution successful September 2024 calling connected Israel to end its “unlawful” occupation wrong a year. Israel has since doubled down, intensifying raids connected Palestinians, deploying soldiers with settlers during their expanding attacks connected Palestinian towns and expanding its settlements, which are amerciable nether planetary law.

Before the warfare connected Gaza began, astir 160,000 Palestinians from the West Bank worked for Israeli employers, astir of them wrong Israel and the remainder successful settlements, according to the Palestinian Institute for Economic Policy Research.

After Israel barred astir licence holders from entering, that fig fell to astir 27,300, by mid-2024. Unemployment successful the West Bank roseate from 12.9 percent successful September 2023 to 30.7 percent a twelvemonth later, according to the Israeli rights radical Gisha.

Palestinians physique caller houses successful the occupied West Bank colony of Bruchin adjacent Nablus connected October 25, 2021 [Ariel Schalit/AP Photo]

How galore Israeli checkpoints are there?

There are much than 300 Israeli checkpoints crossed the West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. As of December, they were among 925 obstacles restricting the question of 3.4 cardinal Palestinians crossed the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are:

• 89 checkpoints staffed 24/7
• 218 partial checkpoints staffed intermittently, 152 of which person gates (90 usually unfastened and 62 often closed)
• 232 roadworthy gates, 159 of them often closed
• 114 linear closures, specified arsenic world walls, roadworthy barriers and trenches
• 167 world mounds
• 105 roadblocks

Where are immoderate of the main checkpoints?

For Palestinians successful the West Bank, these checkpoints chopped disconnected oregon restrict entree betwixt towns and main roads, forcing hundreds of thousands of radical onto longer routes to enactment and school. They besides hinder entree to aesculapian care.

Some of the main checkpoints include:

• Qalandiya checkpoint: The main crossing betwixt Ramallah and East Jerusalem erstwhile handled astir a 3rd of each question betwixt the West Bank and Israel.
• Checkpoint 300: It blocks the roadworthy betwixt Bethlehem and Jerusalem and is the main way for Palestinians moving successful East Jerusalem and different cardinal cities.
• Eyal checkpoint: It serves workers from Qalqilya, wherever Israel’s separation partition has driven up unemployment, and from crossed the bluish West Bank.
• Taybeh checkpoint: It lies conscionable southbound of the bluish Palestinian metropolis of Tulkarem.
• Tarqumiyah checkpoint: It is adjacent Hebron successful the confederate West Bank.

Palestinian men queue astatine the Checkpoint 300 adjacent Bethlehem [File: Jaclynn Ashly/Al Jazeera]