After the ceasefire in Gaza, West Bank Palestinians face more Israeli barriers, traffic and misery

After the ceasefire in Gaza, West Bank Palestinians face more Israeli barriers, traffic and misery
Palestinians lift their arms while leaving their home for safety as the Israeli army conducts a raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on February 9, 2025 (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 10 February 2025
Follow

After the ceasefire in Gaza, West Bank Palestinians face more Israeli barriers, traffic and misery

After the ceasefire in Gaza, West Bank Palestinians face more Israeli barriers, traffic and misery
  • Israel intensified its crackdown on the occupied West Bank, ramping up raids against militants in the north of the territory and subjecting Palestinians in the area to the strictest scrutiny

RAMALLAH: Abdullah Fauzi, a banker from the northern West Bank city of Nablus, leaves home at 4 a.m. to reach his job by 8, and he’s often late.
His commute used to take an hour — until Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, after which Israel launched its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military also ramped up raids against Palestinian militants in the northern West Bank, and diverted its residents through seven new checkpoints, doubling Fauzi’s time on the road.
Now it’s gotten worse.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas took effect, Fauzi’s drive to the West Bank’s business and administrative hub, Ramallah, has become a convoluted, at least four-hour wiggle through steep lanes and farm roads as Israel further tightens the noose around Palestinian cities in measures it considers essential to guard against militant attacks.
“You can fly to Paris while we’re not reaching our homes,” the 42-year-old said from the Atara checkpoint outside Ramallah last week, as Israeli soldiers searched scores of cars, one by one.
“Whatever this is, they’ve planned it well,” he said. “It’s well-designed to make our life hell.”
A ceasefire begets violence
As the truce between Israel and Hamas took hold on Jan. 19, radical Israeli settlers — incensed over an apparent end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages — rampaged through West Bank towns, torching cars and homes.
Two days later, Israeli forces with drones and attack helicopters descended on the northern West Bank city of Jenin, long a center of militant activity.
More checkpoints started going up between Palestinian cities, slicing up the occupied West Bank and creating choke points the Israeli army can shut off on a whim. Crossings that had been open 24/7 started closing during morning and evening rush hours, upturning the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
New barriers — earthen mounds, iron gates — multiplied, pushing Palestinian cars off well-paved roads and onto rutted paths through open fields. What was once a soldier’s glance and head tilt became international border-like inspections.
Israel says the measures are to prevent Hamas from opening a new front in the West Bank. But many experts suspect the crackdown has more to do with assuaging settler leaders like Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and an important ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has threatened to topple the government if Israel does not restart the war in Gaza.
“Israel now has a free hand to pursue what it has wanted to in the West Bank for a long time: settlement expansion, annexation,” said Tahani Mustafa, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “It was considered a potential trade-off.”
Asked why Israel launched the crackdown during the ceasefire, the Israeli military said politicians gave the order in part over concerns that the release of Palestinian prisoners — in swaps for Israeli hostages held by Hamas — could raise tensions in the West Bank.
The checkpoints all over the West Bank, it said, were “to ensure safe movement and expand inspections.”
“Checkpoints are a tool we use in the fight against terror, enabling civilian movement while providing a layer of screening to prevent terrorists from escaping,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman.
Life disrupted
To spend rush hour at an Israeli checkpoint is to hear of the problems it has brought — Palestinian families divided, money lost, trade disrupted, sick people kept from doctors.
Ahmed Jibril said not even his position as manager of emergency services for the Palestinian Red Crescent protects him.
“We’re treated like any other private car,” he said, describing dozens of cases in which Israeli soldiers forced ambulances to wait for inspection when they were responding to emergency calls.
In one case, on Jan. 21, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that a 46-year-old woman who had suffered a heart attack in the southern city of Hebron died while waiting to cross a checkpoint.
The Israeli military said it was not aware of that specific incident. But citing Hamas’ use of civilian infrastructure like hospitals to conceal fighters, the army acknowledged subjecting medical teams to security checks “while trying to reduce the delay as much as possible in order to mitigate harm.”
The UN humanitarian agency, or OCHA, reported that, as of last Nov. 28, Israel had 793 checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, 228 more than before the war in Gaza.
The agency hasn’t updated the tally since the ceasefire, but its latest report noted a surge in “suffocating restrictions” that are “tearing communities apart and largely paralyzing daily life.”
A bubble bursts
With its upscale restaurants and yoga studios, Ramallah gained a reputation in past conflicts for being something of a well-to-do bubble where cafe-hopping residents can feel immune to the harsh realities of the occupation.
Now its residents, struck in numbingly long lines to run simple errands, feel under siege.
“All we want to do is go home,” said Mary Elia, 70, stalled with her husband for nearly two hours at the Ein Senia checkpoint north of Ramallah last week, as they made their way home to east Jerusalem from their daughter’s house. “Are we meant to never see our grandchildren?”
Suddenly, her face contorted in discomfort. She had to urinate, she said, and there were hours to go before they crossed.
A national obsession
Roll down the window at a bottlenecked checkpoint and the same soothing female voice can be heard emanating from countless car radios, reeling off every Israeli checkpoint, followed by “salik” — Arabic for open — or “mughlaq,” closed, based on the conditions of the moment.
These reports recently beat out weather broadcasts for top slot on the West Bank radio lineup.
Almost every Palestinian driver seems able to expound on the latest checkpoint operating hours, the minutiae of soldiers’ mood changes and fiercely defended opinions about the most efficient detours.
“I didn’t ask for a Ph.D. in this,” said Yasin Fityani, 30, an engineer stuck in line to leave Ramallah for work, scrolling through new checkpoint-dedicated WhatsApp groups filled with footage of soldiers installing cement barriers and fistfights erupting over someone cutting the line.
Lost time, lost money
It was the second time in as many weeks that his boss at the Jerusalem bus company called off his morning shift because he was late.
Worse still for Nidal Al-Maghribi, 34, it was too dangerous to back out of the queue of frustrated motorists waiting to pass Jaba checkpoint, which severs his east Jerusalem neighborhood from the rest of the city. Another full day’s work wasted in his car.
“What am I supposed to tell my wife?” he asked, pausing to keep his composure. “This job is how I feed my kids.”
Palestinian trucks, packed with perishable food and construction materials, are not spared the scrutiny. Soldiers often ask truckers to pull over and unload their cargo for inspection. Fruit rots. Textiles and electronics get damaged.
The delays raise prices, further choking a Palestinian economy that shrank 28 percent last year as a result of punitive Israeli policies imposed after Hamas’ attack, said Palestinian Economy Minister Mohammad Alamour. Israel’s ban on most Palestinian workers has left 30 percent of the West Bank’s workforce jobless.
“These barriers do everything except their stated purpose of providing security,” Alamour said.
“They pressure the Palestinian people and the Palestinian economy. They make people want to leave their country.”


Red Cross says office in Gaza damaged in ‘attack’

Red Cross says office in Gaza damaged in ‘attack’
Updated 18 sec ago
Follow

Red Cross says office in Gaza damaged in ‘attack’

Red Cross says office in Gaza damaged in ‘attack’
GENEVA: The International Committee of the Red Cross said an ICRC office in the southern Gaza Strip was damaged by an explosive projectile on Monday, adding that no staff were wounded.
The ICRC said in a statement that the incident had a direct impact on the humanitarian organization’s ability to operate.
“Today, an office of the ICRC in Rafah was damaged by an explosive projectile despite being clearly marked and notified to all parties,” the statement said.
“Fortunately, no staff were injured in this incident, but this has a direct impact on the ICRC’s ability to operate. The ICRC strongly decries the attack against its premises.”
The Geneva-based ICRC said international humanitarian law afforded special protection to humanitarian relief and medical personnel, medical facilities, and objects used for humanitarian relief operations.
“They must be respected and protected in all circumstances to ensure the continuity of care. They must never be attacked,” the ICRC said.
“The parties must do their utmost to ensure their safety by providing clear and strict instructions to weapon bearers.”
The ICRC said that on Sunday contact was lost with emergency medical technicians from the Palestine Red Crescent Society and their whereabouts remain unknown.
Furthermore, humanitarian workers in Gaza were killed and injured last week, it added.
Israel’s military pressed ground operations across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, encircling part of Rafah city near the Egyptian border, almost a week into a renewed assault on the Palestinian territory.
Israel resumed intensive bombing of Gaza last week, citing deadlock in indirect negotiations on next steps in the truce with Hamas after its first stage expired this month.
“The escalation of hostilities in Gaza over the past week has had significant humanitarian impacts, with hundreds of civilians killed, some of whom remain buried under rubble while others have been left behind unable to be rescued,” the ICRC said.
“New evacuation orders and intense hostilities are causing people to flee without a clear sense of areas that are safe, and many people have nowhere else to go. Many have been forced to leave behind their tents and belongings.
“The resumption of hostilities and violence is causing a loss of hope on all sides.”

UAE provides $64.5m grant to Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem

UAE provides $64.5m grant to Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem
Updated 3 min 57 sec ago
Follow

UAE provides $64.5m grant to Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem

UAE provides $64.5m grant to Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem
  • Omar Abu Zayda, director general of Al-Makassed Hospital, thanks the nation for its ongoing support and says it has consistently stood by the Palestinian people
  • The grant will help fund operational expenses, upgrades and staff wages, and enable the World Health Organization to provide essential medicines and other supplies

LONDON: The UAE has awarded a $64.5 million grant to Al-Makassed Hospital, a key medical institution serving Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

The support, which will help fund operational expenses, facility upgrades and wages for medical staff, was approved under the directives of the Emirati president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the Emirates News Agency reported.

Omar Abu Zayda, the director general of Al-Makassed Hospital, thanked the UAE for its ongoing support.

“The UAE’s unwavering commitment to supporting the Palestinian healthcare sector allows us to sustain our operations and fulfill our duties efficiently,” he said.

“Since its founding by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, the UAE has consistently stood by the Palestinian people, particularly in Jerusalem.”

The grant is particularly significant because it will help to enhance healthcare services, particularly for women and children, Abu Zayda added.

Al-Makassed Hospital, located on the Mount of Olives, serves more than 66,000 people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Established in 1968, a few months after Israeli forces occupied the city, it has more than 250 beds and employs about 950 medical and administrative staff. It also operates a specialized residency program for training, from which more than 540 medical specialists have graduated.

Sheikh Theyab bin Mohammed Al-Nahyan, the chairperson of the UAE’s International Humanitarian and Philanthropic Council, reaffirmed the nation’s commitment to support for all members of Palestinian society.

Tareq Ahmed Al-Ameri, who chairs the UAE Aid Agency, said authorities in the country continue to collaborate with international organizations to help enhance healthcare services in East Jerusalem and Gaza.

“Al-Makassed Hospital … is a crucial medical facility, specializing in cardiac surgeries, pediatric and orthopedic clinics, medical research, and comprehensive healthcare services,” he added.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said the Emirati support for the hospital enables the WHO to provide essential medicines and other medical supplies.

It will also enable Al-Makassed to “scale up its medical imaging capacity, improve the obstetrics and gynecology department, and help to train over 100 residents across 11 specialties,” he added.


Palestinian NGO says teen dies in Israeli prison

Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad. (Ahmad family photo)
Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad. (Ahmad family photo)
Updated 54 min 9 sec ago
Follow

Palestinian NGO says teen dies in Israeli prison

Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad. (Ahmad family photo)
  • One of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli custody, Ahmad was 63rd Palestinian inmate to die in Israeli jail since the Oct. 2023 outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said Monday that a teenage inmate died in an Israeli jail, decrying a spike in deaths in custody since the start of the Gaza war.
In a statement, the group announced the death of Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad, 17, in Meggido prison in northern Israel under unknown circumstances.
Israel’s Prison Service said in a statement that a 17-year-old prisoner had died Sunday at the facility.
“His health condition is covered by medical confidentiality,” the statement said.
One of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli custody, Ahmad was the 63rd Palestinian inmate to die in an Israeli jail since the October 2023 outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Prisoners Club.
The advocacy group said Ahmad, from the town of Silwad near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, was detained on September 30. It was not clear what led to his arrest.
The Prisoners Club said that a “growing number” of detainees have died in Israeli custody due to “systematic abuses” throughout the Gaza war.
“This period has been the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement since 1967,” it said, referring to the year Israel seized Palestinian territories including the West Bank in a war.
Rights groups including Israel’s B’Tselem have documented numerous deaths of Palestinians in Israeli prisons during the Gaza war.
B’Tselem has also reported worsening detention conditions for Palestinians, including “systematic mistreatment” and “torture,” which Israeli authorities have denied.
The Prisoners Club said in September there were at least 250 Palestinian minors in Israeli custody.
According to non-government group Defense for Children International Palestine, “each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone-throwing.”


Lebanon contacts US to avert threat of Israel strikes on capital

Residents check the site of Saturday’s Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP
Residents check the site of Saturday’s Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP
Updated 24 March 2025
Follow

Lebanon contacts US to avert threat of Israel strikes on capital

Residents check the site of Saturday’s Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP
  • Israel launched air strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing eight people, in response to rocket fire that hit its territory for first time since Nov. 27

BEIRUT: Lebanese leaders have been in intensive contact with Washington and Paris to prevent Israel from bombing Beirut, a Lebanese official said Monday, after heavy Israeli strikes on the country at the weekend.
Israel launched air strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing eight people, in response to rocket fire that hit its territory for the first time since a ceasefire took effect on November 27.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that following rocket fire on Metula, a town in northern Israel, “Metula’s fate is the same as Beirut’s.”
The official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam “made diplomatic contact with France and the United States... as well as with the UN to achieve de-escalation following Israeli threats to target Beirut.”
The US, France and the United Nations belong to a ceasefire monitoring mechanism.
During two months of full-scale war leading up to the ceasefire, Israeli air strikes pounded the south Beirut bastion of Iran-backed Hezbollah but sometimes also struck in the city center.
Salam “emphasized the need to control security and prevent a repeat of rocket fire” against Israel, the official added.
No party has claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, which a military source said was launched from an area north of the Litani River, between the villages of Kfar Tebnit and Arnoun, near the zone covered by the ceasefire agreement.
The agreement stipulates that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers may be deployed south of the Litani River, with Hezbollah required to dismantle its infrastructure and withdraw north of the river.
Israel missed two deadlines to withdraw all its forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, and continues to hold five positions it deems “strategic.”
Hezbollah denied involvement in the rocket fire.
The Lebanese army said later it dismantled three makeshift rocket batteries in the area, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Israeli border.
A military source told AFP the army detained two Syrians who were “working as guards at a farm near the rocket-launching site.”
The Syrians reported seeing a car with several men who set up the launchers and fired the rockets before leaving.
The war severely weakened Hezbollah, which remains a target of Israeli air strikes despite the ceasefire.


Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’

Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’
Updated 24 March 2025
Follow

Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’

Germany says Gaza civilian deaths ‘extremely worrying’
  • Negotiations have stalled over an extension of the ceasefire
  • The Israeli government has announced plans for a special agency for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans

BERLIN: Germany said on Monday it was extremely worried by the surge in civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip since Israel renewed its full-scale military offensive on the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israel restarted intense air strikes across the densely populated Strip on Tuesday followed by ground operations, shattering the relative calm of a six-week ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which governs Gaza.
Negotiations have stalled over an extension of the ceasefire.
Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the ceasefire deal, a move rejected by Hamas as a violation of the agreement all parties signed.
“It is now very clear that we must quickly return to negotiations and to the ceasefire that was in place,” German foreign ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said in Berlin.
Israel’s renewed military operations would not lead to the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza being released and meant that “the humanitarian situation is once again catastrophic,” he said.
Berlin, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, also condemned “unacceptable statements” by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who last week threatened to annex parts of Gaza unless Hamas releases the remaining Israeli hostages.
Katz has also said that measures targeting Hamas could include implementing US President Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to redevelop Gaza as a Mediterranean resort after the removal of its Palestinian inhabitants to other Arab countries.
The Israeli government has announced plans for a special agency for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.
“If the aim is to set up an authority that has the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as its goal, then that is unacceptable and must be condemned,” Wagner said.
He also condemned an Israeli decision to recognize more than a dozen new settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying the “expansive settlement policy” undermines efforts toward a two-state solution.
“The German government rejects Israel’s entire settlement policy as legally unacceptable. It is clear that this policy must end,” he said.
On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people and the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed at least 50,021 people in the territory, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
The United Nations considers the ministry’s figures to be reliable.