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UNITED NATIONS, Sep 21 (IPS) – Sundus Azza scans the news before heading home, looking for signs that her 30-minute drive could take four hours. Any incident can make traveling difficult.
Sometimes Azza waits for her father to call to tell her if the checkpoints around their house are open. After living in the West Bank city of Hebron for the past two decades, she is used to planning her day based on unpredictability.
Barriers to movement in the West Bank have increased over the past two years, leaving Palestinians without access to hospitals, urban centers and agricultural areas. Restrictions and delays are the new normal.
In a recent study, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported an 8 percent increase in the total number of physical barriers recorded, from 593 in 2020 to 645 in 2023. They range in size from extensive checkpoints to are guarded by military towers to a pile of stones in the middle of the road.
The number of barriers has fluctuated in recent years. However, OCHA notes a notable increase of 35 percent, especially in the number of consistently manned checkpoints in strategic areas. Zone C, the area still under Israeli administrative and police control, hosts the most roads and most obstacles to movement. It covers 60% of the West Bank.
Under international law, Israel must facilitate the free movement of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Cities’ entry points and main roads are often closed without warning for arbitrary ‘security reasons’.
“The aim of the occupying forces is to ensure that they can isolate entire areas if security requires it,” explains Andrea De Domenico, deputy head of OCHA’s Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territories in Jerusalem. “It’s always a bit of an unknown: when you get out, you don’t know when you can come back.”
As a result, most activities require extensive coordination, whether it’s getting a fire truck through checkpoints on time, filtering passengers off and onto a bus during an identity check, or planning a trip to visit relatives.
Guarded life in Hebron
The H2 area of Hebron is one of the most restricted areas in the West Bank. Facial recognition cameras, metal detectors, and detention and interrogation facilities reinforce 77 checkpoints separating Israeli-controlled parts of the city.
To get to her house in the H2, Azza knows she has to pass through at least two checkpoints. But planning is difficult. There are no specific times when the checkpoints are open. When they are closed there are no waiting areas. Azza says that if that happens, she hopes there is a nice guard there – and that he speaks Arabic or English – and explains that she is just trying to get home.
The checkpoint at Azza University was closed for three months after a stabbing incident in 2016. She remembers the streets being filled with soldiers when she walked around one cold winter. Azza put her hands in the pockets of her jacket to warm them. A hundred yards away, a guard she recognized shouted at her to remove her hands. Now Azza says she is careful about buying even a kitchen knife that could get in trouble if she brings it home.
There are other challenges in navigating the historic Palestinian city, dotted with checkpoints. De Domenico tells stories about an elderly woman who stopped going outside to avoid being harassed by soldiers. “If settlers are on the streets, they can attack me whenever they want,” Azza said.
De Domenico says Palestinians often do not report incidents to Israeli police for fear of having their permits revoked in retaliation. Moreover, just going to a police station in an Israeli settlement is a challenge. Because their cars are not allowed to drive through, the Palestinians have to walk behind Israeli cars sent to escort them.
When soldiers ask for her ID, Azza says they want her ID number, not her name: “They treat us like a number.”
Permits as power
Permits control life in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Musaab, a university student in Nablus, has submitted six permit applications to travel for cancer treatment. They were all rejected. Ultimately, he had to travel to Jordan twice without his father for care.
“This is so inhumane. How can this happen anywhere in the world? Why are they preventing me from accompanying my son? I just want to hold his hand when he goes into surgery,” Musaab’s father told WHO.
Stories like Musaab’s are widespread as patients in the West Bank and Gaza are prevented from seeking health care by licensing restrictions. According to OCHA, in 2022, 15 percent of patient requests to visit Israeli health facilities in East Jerusalem were not approved in time for their appointment. 93 percent of ambulances were delayed because patients had to transfer to Israeli-licensed vehicles.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 160,000 physical restrictions in Zone C have led many communities to rely on mobile clinics funded by humanitarian aid. This year, OCHA’s humanitarian response plan was only 33% funded.
“Warns that humanitarian needs are increasing due to restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement within the West Bank. This undermines their access to livelihoods and essential services such as health and education,” Florencia Soto Nino, deputy spokesperson for the Secretary General, told reporters.
Putting up walls
Walls exacerbate these humanitarian problems.
A barrier, now 65 percent built, runs along the West Bank border and within the territory, often carving out Israeli settlements, dividing communities and sometimes literally running through homes.
To enter East Jerusalem, women under 50 and men under 55 with West Bank ID must show a permit from Israeli authorities. Even then, they can only use three of the thirteen checkpoints.
Palestinian farmers are also separated from their land and livelihoods.
According to OCHA, many private farms are trapped in areas established as ‘fire zones’ by the Israeli forces. As a result, they are sometimes only accessible twice a year. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that agricultural yields in the region have been reduced by almost 70% as Palestinians have been forced to give up their land.
The size of a farmer’s plot determines when and for how long it can be maintained. Farmers must coordinate the times when soldiers open the gates that give them access to their land. Harvest days are especially difficult. In some cases, De Domenico says, an agricultural permit is only given to the owner of the land and not to any of his workers.
Meanwhile, De Domenico describes Gaza, an area separated from Israel by a twelve-metre-high wall, as a “gigantic prison” for 2.3 million Palestinians. Here, fewer physical obstacles are needed to limit movement.
“It is the only place on earth where, when war breaks out, people cannot flee,” De Domenico said.
Living with tension
Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine at the United Nations, expressed his disappointment at the “paralysis of the international community” when it came to the protection of the Palestinian people at a meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People people against discrimination. end of August.
At the same time, OCHA is working to facilitate “humanitarian corridors to ensure basic services are delivered,” De Domenico said. For example, the office has helped teachers reach communities where students had to walk miles.
De Domenico adds that reports can facilitate important discussions. Israeli authorities, who have in the past disputed materials produced by OCHA, have been invited along for the ride as U.N. agents map out new barriers.
Still, “there is always the risk of tension in the air,” says De Domenico, even for UN agents. “You live with this tension all the time.”
IPS UN office report
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service