NABLUS, West Bank, 7 August 2007 — For five years, Ziyad Al-Sarrawi watched Israel’s tightening cordon around the city of Nablus slowly strangle the auto parts shop he built from scratch.
He found his solution in April when he opened a new branch a few kilometers away — just on the other side of Hiwwara, the Israeli checkpoint at the southern entrance of the city that cuts Nablus off from much of the occupied West Bank and Israel.
Within the tangled network of 500 checkpoints, roadblocks and barriers across the West Bank, the eight checkpoints around Nablus may be the ultimate obstacle.
Home to about 365,000 Palestinians, Nablus and the surrounding villages have been famed as a center for trade since Greco-Roman times.
Before Israel ringed Nablus with checkpoints in 2002 after the start of the Palestinian uprising, the city was the West Bank’s economic heart.
Now about 25,000 Palestinians struggle to cross Hiwwara and other checkpoints around the city each day. On a slow day, the lucky ones can make it through the long lines and Israeli security checks within minutes. But it can take hours and those who don’t have the right permit get turned back.
“We are being suffocated here by these checkpoints,” Sarrawi said inside his older Nablus shop. He said the new branch serves as “the lungs” to allow his 36-year-old business selling Mercedes-Benz spare parts to survive: “We were forced to go out of Nablus so that we could breathe.”
Sarrawi, 57, is far from alone. Entrepreneurs who cannot afford to open new branches are moving out of Nablus, a city some 60 km north of Jerusalem, in increasing numbers. Although the Nablus Chamber of Commerce does not keep exact numbers, it estimated that Israeli restrictions have reduced business income in the city by more than 40 percent. “If the checkpoints remain in place, then I am afraid all businesses will leave,” said Omar Hashem, acting president of Chamber of Commerce.
In a bid to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas following Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, Israeli officials say they are preparing to remove some of the roadblocks and checkpoints that restrict Palestinian travel in the West Bank.
But few Palestinians expect Hiwwara to be removed any time soon and say any changes may be short-lived.
Nablus’s ancient kasbah used to attract Israeli and other foreign tourists. Its car repair shops, in particular, attracted customers from across the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel, pumping millions of dollars into the local economy.
“In the afternoon, you can play football in the markets. No customers,” said Mahdi Hijazi.
Like Sarrawi, he moved his spare parts business from Nablus to the Hiwwara village because of the Israeli checkpoints.
To pass through the checkpoints that surround Nablus and nearby villages, motorists need to obtain a special permit.
Some 620 trucks, 400 private cars and 200 taxis have received permits since the beginning of the year, allowing them to cross through checkpoints within the West Bank, an official with Israel’s civil administration said.
