There are a thousand checkpoints in the West Bank... why?

The occupation military barrier that blocks the Palestinians’ way is not just a security measure, but it is much deeper and more profound than that. The engineering of these barriers, their types, shapes, surrounding and accompanying infrastructure, and what happens during and in them, all work to violate the lives of Palestinians and rob them of their livelihoods, time, way of life, and the fabric of their lives. The occupation barrier reshapes the place, changes the public space, and destroys the natural development of growth and expansion. The barrier, in this sense, carries out a collective punishment process through fragmentation, separation, drying up communication, and preventing the natural relationship between people and their nurturing environment. There are more than a thousand permanent and flying barriers in the occupied West Bank, which, together, have been able to turn life into a real hell.

Although the barrier is not a siege in the literal sense, it does what a siege cannot do. The barrier - as the Israeli occupier imposes it on us and experiments with us - molds us in terms of adapting to the conditions imposed on us and forces us to look for different alternatives, lower the ceilings, and be satisfied with the meager and difficult alternative, turning us into competitors for opportunities and crumbs. The barrier here turns us into violent, selfish, and competitive blocs and brings out the absolute worst in us. I do not want to go into embarrassing and humiliating details.

The checkpoint is a form of soft occupation that always reminds you that there is an occupation, and that it can change your life at any moment, so that the open road turns into a great blessing, and that passing through a gate or an electronic or earthen checkpoint is winning paradise. This soft checkpoint quickly turns into an actual hell if the soldier wants to steal your day or your life from you without the slightest thought, review, self-assessment, sense of guilt, or fear of punishment. He knows, and you know, that this checkpoint is not for bringing security at all. The whole world has seen the occupier bomb cars deep in the cities. The soldier knows, and you know, that this checkpoint was put in place for punishment, torture, sabotage, and revenge. The soldier knows, and you know, that this procedure is inhumane. He takes revenge on the sick, pregnant women, and children, and ignites feelings of anger and congestion in the heart that explode from time to time.

The occupier is creative in the types and shapes of barriers. There are dirt ones that completely block the road, there are cubes that control speed and control who enters and who leaves, there are yellow iron gates that open and close according to a logic known only to God and the Israeli general who knows everything, there are electronic barriers, in which there are booths with soldiers on the ground, iron teeth that tear apart anyone who violates the so-called law, and all of this is surrounded by military vehicles and soldiers scattered in the four corners, and there are barriers that have been transformed into crossings separating occupied lands from other occupied lands, there is no difference between them except in the history of the occupation, which makes these barriers or crossings racist par excellence, and on the occasion of racism, Israel differentiates between roads and streets, there are streets for Palestinians that are poor and broken and without lights and without signs and without sidewalks and settlers cannot pass through them according to a sign raised at the beginning of the road warning them that entering is dangerous - exactly like that - while the roads for settlers are lit, paved and wide, and all of them have signs and banners written in classical Hebrew in a blatant attempt at Westernization, and some of these roads are forbidden to Palestinians are not allowed to pass through it at all. The occupier believes that emptying the place is emptying the awareness of identity, and for this reason, colonial road engineering works to alienate the place in order to expel its people and sever their connection to it.

Therefore, the roads, barriers, and infrastructure of all types, directions, and types have become effective colonial weapons in order to deepen and expand settlement and facilitate its development, and in order to oppress the Palestinians, deprive them of their land and wealth, and push them to emigrate, sooner or later.

Anyone traveling the streets of the occupied West Bank, its main and secondary roads, will be shocked when they see the speed of settlement construction, the controlling road network, and the number and types of checkpoints that turn every people, no matter how strong and rich, into a poor people who cannot live their lives at all. This traveler will be astonished when he sees that settlement construction controls the hills and mountain slopes, the sources of wealth, and the roads, and that the checkpoints cut off connections and violate privacy, the fabric, and even the future.

In this regard, the barrier, whatever its type and form, is no less dangerous than settlement construction, as it completes it, accomplishes its mission, facilitates its existence, and prolongs its existence.

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Roads, barriers, and their various types, directions, and infrastructure have become effective colonial weapons for deepening and expanding settlement and facilitating its development, and for oppressing the Palestinians, robbing them of their land and wealth, and forcing them to emigrate, sooner or later.