Hard Crossings: Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank

Al Jazeera follows Palestinians as they navigate the Israeli checkpoints that have become a frustrating feature of daily life.

Check it out at Hard Crossings from filmmaker Muhammad Salama.

Here there’s a bit of context:

Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank have become part of everyday life for the thousands of Palestinians who must pass through them daily.

Israel claims that the checkpoints are vital to stop suicide bombers entering its cities.

But critics say they are a form of collective punishment – effectively sealing off Palestinian cities, hindering travel and access to schools and medical care and jeopardising any hopes for peace.

Hazem al-Qawasmeh, the founder of Karama, or the International Campaign for Freedom of Movement for Palestinians, says: “These military checkpoints restrict Palestinians’ movement and turn their cities into prisons. The West Bank has now become a big prison. It is separated from the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.

“Qalandiya checkpoint is one of the worst checkpoints in the West Bank. Palestinians have to wait there for hours as they try to cross from the West Bank to Jerusalem.”

Hard Crossings follows the Palestinians who must navigate these checkpoints and for whom they have become a frustrating and often humiliating feature of daily life.

Using archaeology for political means

Amira Hass reports in Haaretz on 26 July 2012 that the Israeli Authorities in the West Bank are calling for the demolition of a Palestinian village in the southern Hebron hills, Zanuta, with the excuse it is built on an archaeological site.

Residents of the village of Zanuta.
Photo by The Association for Civil Rights.

Hass shows that the Israeli Authorities are once more showing their double standards when it comes to protecting archaeological sites. While Zanuta and other Palestinian villages are being issued with demolition orders, the same Israeli authorities have approved the construction of Jewish settlements on much more important archaeological sites, such as the settlement at Tel Rumeida in Hebron and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem.

Furthermore,  archeologists supporting the villagers say that the extent of the proposed demolitions goes far beyond the area of the presumed archeological finds.

The residents of Zanuta have filed a joint petition to the High Court of Justice with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

650,143 illegal Jewish settlers in Palestine

According to figures from the Israeli Ministry of Interior reported by Israel Hayom on 26 July, the number of settlers in the so-called by the zionists ‘Judea and Samaria’ (the West Bank of Palestine) has increased a 4.5% from the last year and now comes to 350,143. The figures do not not include residents of neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and north Jerusalem over the Green Line, where the Jewish population numbers about 300,000. In total, therefore, there are 650,143 illegal Jewish settlers in Palestine.

In the last 12 months there were 15,579 new settlers, mainly in settlements not usually considered part of the settlement blocs. This magnifies the importance of these areas, which in future negotiations are liable to be part of the Palestinian state, thus remaining outside Israel’s borders. The old settlement blocs remain stable: the Ariel bloc has a population numbering almost 50,000 people, the Maale Adumim bloc comes to just over 45,000 and the Etzion Bloc comes to 22,000. All together, the old settlement blocs have 116,824 residents, and the settlements outside these blocs have more than 233,000 residents.

The data also show that over the course of 12 years, the Jewish population in the West Bank has almost doubled. In 2000 there were 190,206 Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

All settlements are illegal under international law.