Checkpoint

Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank range from large, permanent terminals on the Green Line — Qalandia, between Ramallah and Jerusalem, is the best known — to partially staffed checkpoints, unannounced “flying” checkpoints, roadblocks, earth mounds, trenches, and metal gates at village entrances. Together with the permit regime they form a single system: passage depends on the identity card a Palestinian carries and the permits attached to it, so the same road is open to an Israeli settler and closed to the Palestinian who lives beside it.

A UN survey in 2023 documented 645 movement obstacles across the West Bank, including 49 constantly staffed and 139 intermittently staffed checkpoints; after October 2023 the number of obstacles rose sharply, with new gates and closures sealing many communities. At crossings along the separation barrier, only a fraction are open to Palestinians holding West Bank IDs and Israeli permits. The documented effects include ambulances delayed, patients missing treatment, students and workers facing hours of uncertainty each way, and farmers cut off from their land.

The checkpoints have also become sites of documentation and protest. MachsomWatch (“Checkpoint Watch”), an organization of Israeli women, has observed and reported on checkpoint conduct since 2001. Human rights organizations describe the checkpoint system as a sweeping, collectively imposed restriction on the freedom of movement of an occupied population; Israel defends it as counterterrorism screening that intercepts attackers and weapons.

Sources

• Movement and Access in the West Bank — UN OCHA oPt
• UN Has Documented 645 Israeli Movement Obstacles Within the West Bank — OCHA Press Release, August 2023
• MachsomWatch — Women Against the Occupation and for Human Rights