Collective Nablus movement prohibitions are harsh and unique in the Territory. Males between 16 and 35 are especially affected, but they overall disrupt life for everyone. The restricted male population alone affects 26,000 persons. If the age is lowered to 15, it rises to 36,000, and if females are included (as sometimes happens) it totals 73,000. This group is the area's main work force, its entire economic life depends on them, and prohibiting their movement brings it to a halt.
When it's in force, siege conditions vary by checkpoint for those allowed through. The two main Beit Iba and Huwara ones inflict the longest and most burdensome delays and restrictions. In addition, all persons having a "risk profile" because of age are forbidden to leave the area and need a "movement permit in area under encirclement" if they want to exit. However, it's not easy getting one with a convoluted system in place that requires a party permitted to cross to apply for persons who aren't and even they can't do it easily. In addition, permits aren't issued for "ordinary" needs, such as work, family visits or school. Those considered are only for "humanitarian" reasons like needed medical care. Few overall are issued.
The Nablus siege also restricts movement in the Jenin Tulkarm and Tubas districts. Nablus is vital for them and for years was the West Bank's economic and industrial center. Now these districts are separated, and major roads between them are blocked. In the past, traveling from Jenin to Nablus took about 40 minutes on the main road. It now takes one to three hours on narrow, winding roads plus a long wait at one of the Nablus area checkpoints.
Over the past two years especially, accessing Nablus has been hard and complicated for villagers located to its north. Checkpoint access is limited, some are closed to traffic, and those that operate have delays running up to hours. In addition, soldiers at times block road traffic for several hours, no advance notice is given, and it causes undue hardship for travelers having to wait or use alternate routes. The IDF is also at times punitive. It sets up indiscriminate flying checkpoints, uses them for punishment, and makes it harsher with instances of violence and confiscation of permits and identity cards that can only be redeemed at a permanent checkpoint that may or may not be operating.
The Central Section splitting caused much the same type hardships. It created two principal sub-areas around Salfit and Ramallah. It detached some of these cities' villages and separated them from their residents' farmland.
After the IDF blocked Salfit's main entrance road from the north, alternate routes became necessary, and they lengthened travel times considerably. It created great hardship for travelers who rely on Nablus for basic services and also for villagers who are blocked from their farmland. Sixty-six thousand people are affected.
It's even worse for the 300,000 Ramallah district residents in a city that's the West Bank's seat of government because Israel denies East Jerusalem that status. In addition, after undo restrictions and hardships caused many Palestinian entrepreneurs to leave Nablus and the northern West Bank, Ramallah developed into the Territory's cultural and economic center. Obstructions, checkpoints and the Separation Wall demarcate the area and combined make movement just as hard as throughout the rest of the West Bank.
It's the same for Jericho's 40,000 residents. In addition, for 10,000 of them in the north in the besieged Jordan Valley, they're separated from the city, and for those in the east there's another obstacle - 19 km of trenches and land east of it that's a closed military area.
The South section's splitting has been less conspicuous, but it hasn't made movement easier. Most notably since September 2000, have been restrictions in Route 60's southern section that runs the entire length of the southern West Bank and is this subsection's principal roadway. Access roads to the Route are now blocked, over time some have been eased, but use of the road remains limited.
Most harmed are residents in towns and villages in Hebron's southern area. To reach the city, they must use long, winding, beat-up roads that are no substitute for decent ones. Once the Separation Wall is completed east of the Efrat and Gush Atzion settlements, Route 60's northern quarter in the South section will be on the Wall's Israeli side and completely off-limits to Palestinians. As a result, Bethlehem will be separated from Jerusalem as well as the main road to Hebron with all the hardships that will create.
Consider how they affect Hebron. It's the only Palestinian West Bank city (other than East Jerusalem that Israel annexed in 1967) with an Israeli settlement in its center. Because of it, the IDF created a contiguous strip of land through the city over which Palestinian vehicles are prohibited. It runs from the Kiryat Arba settlement in the east to the Palestinian Tel Rumeida neighborhood in the west, and in many sections along its center, Palestinian pedestrians are banned. The main Shuhada Street is most affected. In addition, the strip blocks Hebron's main north-south artery harming the entire Palestinian population.
Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea restrictions involve the use of Route 90 that runs the entire length of the section. Israel operates five checkpoints here for control. Only public transportation and vehicles with special permits may pass. That frees the Route for settlers and Israelis traveling between Jerusalem and the Beit She'an Valley, the Sea of Galilee, or the Galilee area in the north. It also allows the IDF to use large Jordan Valley sections as fire-exercise zones and close off much of their water and grazing areas to Palestinians.
Dozens of non-contiguous "seam-zone" enclaves are also affected. The Separation Wall separates them by winding back and forth between the Green Line and deep into the West Bank. They all contain Palestinian farmland on the barrier's Israeli side. Some also include villages where 30,000 Palestinians live. Because they aren't connected, crossing from one subsection to another at best is hard and at worst impossible. It forces travelers to cross the Wall twice with all the hardships that entails. Further, since permits are for one enclave only, entering another one requires a second permit.
The Separation Wall then can be divided into five sections plus the Jerusalem area, and each one contains separate enclaves. Combined they form a crazy quilt isolation pattern with physical obstacles and human repression used against a defenseless civilian population.
Internal community and farmland enclaves are affected as well but not by having to pass through the Wall or obtain permits. However, roads that used to connect them have been closed making travel times longer and more complicated. When completed, the Wall's route will create 13 non-contiguous internal enclaves for about 240,000 Palestinians in dozens of towns and villages.
East Jerusalem is the final section. Israeli Arabs with identity cards may move about fairly freely with one notable exception. It's the use of temporary checkpoints (so-called "collection" ones) to collect resident tax debts. They operate a few hours at a time on main neighborhood roads where Israeli Police (usually Border Police) provide security along with tax officials to do the collecting. Police stop cars, collectors do the rest, but never to Jerusalem's Jewish residents.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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