How Israel’s illegal system of checkpoints works as ‘collective punishment’
Israeli Checkpoints in the Occupied Territories
MIFTAH, August 21, 2008
'The quarter of a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank do not have to pass through the checkpoints. They are given access to bypass roads, only available to them, which connect West Bank settlements to Israel...The checkpoints scattered all over the West Bank affect Palestinians and their way of life in many different ways. The economy is suffering, education is in a dangerous state of decline and families are divided, but these problems are superseded momentarily by the overwhelming complaints over the major injustices at the checkpoints, namely the violation of human rights.'
...the number of physical impediments in the West Bank had increased by 44% to 540 in the year from the Agreement on Movement and Access in November 2005...
...these checkpoints still exist as excessive, cumbersome and thorough as ever before, making life incredibly difficult for West Bank residents...most of them operate and are dispersed throughout the West Bank, isolating Palestinians from each other, separating communities and making the entry into towns and cities within the West Bank almost inaccessible.
...Out of the 528 recorded checkpoints in September 2006, 83 were manned by armed Israeli personnel while 445 were simple road blocks preventing travel, consisting of metal fencing, earth mounds or concrete barricades...
The World Bank report estimates that ‘Palestinians are restricted from some 41 sections of roads in the West Bank covering an approximate distance of 700 km’...
When Palestinians travel to and from work, they must take into account the time it takes to pass through the checkpoints. Reuters journalist, Mohammed Assadi, states that a 60 mile journey from Jenin, in the northern West Bank, to Ramallah, can now take up to five hours as he must pass through at least four checkpoints...
The quarter of a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank do not have to pass through the checkpoints. They are given access to bypass roads, only available to them, which connect West Bank settlements to Israel...
The checkpoints scattered all over the West Bank affect Palestinians and their way of life in many different ways. The economy is suffering, education is in a dangerous state of decline and families are divided, but these problems are superseded momentarily by the overwhelming complaints over the major injustices at the checkpoints, namely the violation of human rights.
Human Rights Watch reports that in September 2000, three Palestinian laborers required hospitalization after being beaten by Israeli soldiers, according to Ha’aretz. In response to the event, the Israeli soldier commented, ‘what we did was nothing special…everyone does it.’
A Palestinian father was cuffed and beaten at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus by an Israeli soldier as his son clung onto his father’s clothes. A blanket was then placed over the head of the father so that his cries could not be heard. The Israeli sergeant reportedly stated that because he was beaten ‘everybody learns and nobody fools with us’.
Before the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, a female Israeli soldier forced a Palestinian to drink a bottle of cleaning fluid at gunpoint...
Palestine Monitor details that there have been 116 deaths in total as a result of people needing medical care being delayed or prevented from continuing at checkpoints. 31 of these deaths resulted from stillbirths. The same report describes how 19 women and 29 newborn babies died at checkpoints between September 2000 and December 2002...
The checkpoints do not only add time taken for children to get to school but they also deter children from going to school indefinitely. Palestine Monitor reports that children are victim to insults, beatings and cursing by the Israeli soldiers. As a result of this intimidation more and more children are dropping out of school or postponing their education.
Israeli Checkpoints in the Occupied Territories
Palestine Monitor 21st August 2008
These physical impediments also act as rather effective tools for prohibiting family members from seeing each other. There is no travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If an individual has a West Bank ID, that individual will not be allowed into Jerusalem and consequently, Israel...
Article 33 of the IV Geneva Convention states that,
‘An occupying government may not use collective punishment or intimidation against the occupied population’.
Under Human rights law the occupying government must ensure freedom of movement, an adequate standard of living and as normal a life for the population as possible...
In complete contrast to this, Human Rights Watch in 2005 stated that checkpoints displayed ‘a system of collective punishment, also in direct violation of Israel’s obligation as an occupying power, to provide welfare for the population it controls’.
Palestine Monitor views the checkpoint system as a tool to ‘judaize and entrench Israel’s illegal occupation’ as well as to humiliate the Palestinians with the checkpoints acting as a constant reminder of the occupation.