West Bank Report: Qalandiya
Qalandiya checkpoint, or Atarot Terminal as the Israeli’s call it, is now one of the West Bank’s largest checkpoints. The new terminal was completed in 2019 and along with the Apartheid wall it forms an imposing and impenetrable barrier between Ramallah and Jerusalem.
The use of the word Terminal is no accident. It’s meant to evoke feelings of an international airport, a perfectly normal place that millions of us pass through each time we want to go on holiday. In reality it is a terrifying militarised zone that thousands of Palestinians are forced to navigate as part of their daily routine.
Palestinian commuters are forced to use biometric cards which use face prints, fingerprints and iris scanning to confirm identity. This results in them unwillingly supplying their unique identifiable bioprints with the Israeli run Population Registry. This increase in biometric technology is not just on the increase in the occupied West Bank, it is being used in Gaza too.
Before leaving office Biden started talks with Israel about the creation of ‘Humanitarian bubbles’ in Gaza, where Palestinians would register and provide their biometric data to be stored in exchange for accessing food in designated aid centres. The Israeli Government said this would ensure that no aid was inadvertently provided to Hamas, although It's widely believed that these centres are simply a way to annex Gaza further, and allow Israeli settlements to be set up in the strip.
The UN has condemned the plans, which involves consolidating food aid at “4 to 10 designated aid centres in southern Gaza” as an attempt to use aid as bait. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder is quoted as saying that the plan to move food distribution to the south and to require facial recognition technology “contravenes basic humanitarian principles” and appears designed to “reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic”.
The IDF currently use tech giants Corsight and Google Photos to provide them with facial recognition. They first deployed the software after October 7th to identify missing and deceased Israeli hostages. It is now being used inside Gaza to identify resistance fighters and their associates, however it’s been reported by the New York Times that the software has incorrectly identified individuals that have no links to Hamas, and has resulted in many Gazan citizens being incorrectly identified.
Sources -https://www.biometricupdate.com/202403/wars-prompt-questions-for-facial-recognition-providers-and-obscure-the-answers
https://www.biometricupdate.com/202505/israel-seeks-funding-for-plan-to-require-facial-recognition-in-exchange-for-food-in-gaza
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