To be at work by 9 a.m., Joseph Handal gets up at 4:30 a.m., even though his workplace, a Franciscan church in the Old City of Jerusalem, is only a few miles from his home in Bethlehem. <\/p>\n
The journey should take 25 minutes by road. But this is the occupied\u00a0West\u00a0Bank. Nothing is ever simple here. <\/p>\n
As a Palestinian resident of the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, Handal needs a permit to enter Jerusalem. He does have one \u2013 but whether he can make it to work depends on his ability to get through at least two Israeli checkpoints. <\/p>\n
With Israel at war,\u00a0he says\u00a0this process has become a nightmare. <\/p>\n
After\u00a0Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people and kidnapping some 240 others, Israel stepped up its security measures and began severely restricting the freedom of movement of Palestinian residents of the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank. <\/p>\n
Israel controls all entry and exit points to the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0through roadblocks and checkpoints which are staffed by soldiers and armed police. The security forces have always had the ability to close these checkpoints without warning but, since October 7, the closures have been more frequent and have lasted longer, residents\u00a0and human rights watchdogs\u00a0say. <\/p>\n
For Handal and the tens of thousands of\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0Palestinians who need to get to Jerusalem for work, school, to go to a doctor or to\u00a0visit family, this means daily uncertainty. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt puts you in a position where you can\u2019t even tell someone \u2018I\u2019ll meet you tomorrow,\u2019 because you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d said Mohammad Jamil, an Arabic teacher from a village near Hebron. <\/p>\n
But while Ibrahim might be relieved when\u00a0he misses\u00a0school, his father is growing more exasperated by the day. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no future here. No solution,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Ibrahim is a resident of Jerusalem, where he lives with his mother, an Israeli citizen. But Jamil is a Palestinian from the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, which means he can\u2019t come to\u00a0visit Ibrahim as often as he\u2019d like to. He lives and works in the West Bank and has a family visit permit to enter Jerusalem\u00a0to visit Ibrahim\u00a0\u2013 but\u00a0it\u00a0onlyallows him to go\u00a0five days\u00a0every three months. <\/p>\n
Instead, Ibrahim comes to stay with him in the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0two days a week \u2013 an arrangement that\u00a0Jamil says\u00a0has become much more complicated since the war began. <\/p>\n
New restrictions on movement can come into effect suddenly and without explanation, so people who need to move around for work must be\u00a0more\u00a0flexible and always leave plenty of time to spare. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are used to this. We live under occupation,\u201d Handal\u00a0said.\u00a0Still, the complicated commute that can\u00a0sometimes\u00a0involve long waiting times, unexpected closures of the checkpoints and interrogation\u00a0from Israeli security forces is well worth it to Handal.\u00a0Average daily wages in Israel and Jerusalem are more than double what people can earn in the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, according to the International\u00a0Labour Organization. <\/p>\n
Israel has\u00a0occupied\u00a0the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0since seizing the territory from Jordanian military occupation\u00a0in\u00a01967. In the early 1990s, under the Oslo Accords peace agreements, the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0was divided into three distinct zones: A, B and C. <\/p>\n
Area C, which comprises\u00a0about\u00a060% of the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, is fully Israeli-controlled\u00a0and forms one continuous territory. Area B is under the\u00a0joint control of\u00a0Israel and the Palestinian Authority, while Area A is wholly within Palestinian control.\u00a0Each make up about 20% of the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank. <\/p>\n
Cities and villages in areas B and A are often isolated from each other, which means Palestinians wishing to go from one to another may have to pass through areas that are fully controlled by Israel. <\/p>\n
This can prove difficult or sometimes impossible. <\/p>\n
An Israeli checkpoint on the road that connects\u00a0Handal\u2019s\u00a0neighborhood\u00a0in Bethlehem with the main road out of the city\u00a0has been closed\u00a0to cars\u00a0for at least a month. To leave it, he needs to take a taxi or drive to the checkpoint, cross the barrier on foot and then continue his\u00a0journey in a different vehicle. <\/p>\n
As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed\u00a0to\u00a0gradually\u00a0transfer control over the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0to the Palestinian Authority, but that has not happened. Instead, dozens of Israeli settlements have been built in the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, encroaching into\u00a0land that\u00a0Palestinians, along with the international community, view as territory for a future Palestinian state. <\/p>\n
Approximately 500,000 Israeli Jewish settlers\u00a0now live in the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, according to Peace Now,\u00a0an Israeli group that advocates for peace and monitors settlements.\u00a0Many\u00a0of these settlements are\u00a0heavily guarded, fenced-off areas that are completely off limits to Palestinians. <\/p>\n
Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law\u00a0and Israel has been criticized for allowing their expansion\u00a0\u2013 and, in\u00a0some\u00a0cases, supporting them with tax breaks and state-funded security.\u00a0Israel\u00a0views\u00a0the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0as \u201cdisputed territory,\u201d and contends its settlement policy is legal. <\/p>\n
The areas around these settlements have always been prone to violence, but the situation has worsened\u00a0in recent months. <\/p>\n
More than 170 Palestinians have been killed in the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank\u00a0since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health\u00a0in Ramallah.\u00a0That\u2019s more than were killed across the whole of\u00a02022 by Israeli forces, according to UN figures. <\/p>\n
Most died during clashes with security forces and raids by the IDF.\u00a0According to the IDF, some of them were Hamas and Jihad militants, while others engaged in clashes. <\/p>\n
At least eight\u00a0Palestinians\u00a0were killed by settlers, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. <\/p>\n
The spiralling violence has prompted international outcry, including from\u00a0Volker Turk, the\u00a0UN high commissioner for human rights. <\/p>\n
\u201cI appeal as a matter of urgency for Israeli authorities to take immediate measures to take steps to ensure the protection of Palestinians in the West Bank who are being on a daily basis subjected to violence from Israeli forces and settlers, ill treatment, arrests, evictions, intimidation and humiliation,\u201d Turk said. <\/p>\n
According to the UN,\u00a0since October 7, nearly 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been forced from their homes by settlers. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the context of the coercive\u00a0environment\u00a0they live in, the displacement of these communities may amount to the forcible transfer of the population, which is a grave breach of the\u00a0Fourth\u00a0Geneva Convention,\u201d Turk said, adding: \u201cContinued, widespread impunity for such violations is unacceptable, dangerous and it is in clear violation of Israel\u2019s obligation under international human rights law.\u201d <\/p>\n
A group of 30 human rights and civil society organizations in Israel\u00a0published a joint letter last month, alleging\u00a0the settlers have been\u00a0\u201cexploiting the lack of public attention to the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank, as well as the general atmosphere\u00a0of rage against Palestinians, to escalate their campaign of violent attacks in an attempt to forcibly transfer Palestinian communities.\u201d <\/p>\n
US President Joe Biden also weighed in on the issue. A staunch supporter of Israel and its military response to the Hamas attacks,\u00a0Biden nonetheless\u00a0condemned \u201cextremist settlers\u201d\u00a0from Israel attacking Palestinians in the\u00a0West\u00a0Bank. <\/p>\n
Speaking about the violence by settlers, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on Wednesday, saying: \u201cThere is a tiny handful of people that do not represent this public and that take the law into their own hands. We are not prepared to tolerate this. We are not prepared to accept this. We will take all action against them.\u201d <\/p>\n
At the same time, groups of Palestinians have regularly clashed with Israeli police at checkpoints and in\u00a0other tense areas, often throwing stones and setting fires. <\/p>\n
Jamil said he always drives his son around and makes sure he gets onto the school bus safely, because settlers have on occasion come to the area and thrown\u00a0rocks at\u00a0passing cars. <\/p>\n
After a few long hours of\u00a0waiting, checking with friends on updates and wondering what would happen, Handal managed to get to work on Monday. <\/p>\n
The bus never turned up, but he found a workaround.\u00a0\u201cI have a friend from Jerusalem who took me with him. At the border they asked for my ID and permit, and they let me in. I made it \u2013 by chance,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Paid by the hour and with two young children\u00a0at home, he\u00a0said he\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0afford to sit a day out. <\/p>\n\n
To be at work by 9 a.m., Joseph Handal gets up at 4:30 a.m., even though his workplace, a Franciscan church in the Old City of Jerusalem, is only a few miles from his home in Bethlehem. The journey should take 25 minutes by road. But this is the occupied\u00a0West\u00a0Bank. Nothing is ever simple here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}