Tag: Checkpoint 56

Waiting at a checkpoint

November 3 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Ash-Shuhada street in al-Khalil full of Israeli flags welcoming Netanyahu. Less welcome are the Palestinians living there: they are not even allowed to access their houses through their main entrances.

This is what normality in al-Khalil looks like

I was somewhere between excited and afraid the night before the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to al-Khalil (Hebron) on September 4 this year as part of his re-election campaign and timed with a ceremony commemorating the 1929 Hebron massacre, a central element of the justification narrative employed by the Israeli settlers in al-Khalil. I was afraid that the Israeli military and police would use excessive violence against the Palestinian residents during the occasion. The last few days had already been marked by extra army patrols through the streets, more frequent ID checks, night raids and arrests of political activists. However, there was also a feeling of excitement that the controversial visit could draw attention to the various human rights violations inflicted on Palestinians and the specific border(zone) management that made them possible. Serious restrictions of movement and different forms of violence have been part of Palestinian Khalilis’ everyday lives for decades. The latter include settlers attacking their houses and assaulting them in the streets; families getting woken up in the middle of the night by soldiers smashing down their front doors to search their homes and arrest fathers and sons (no matter their age); children getting teargassed on their way from school and sometimes even while sitting in their classrooms. I could go on. As shocking as this may all sound, for Palestinians living in the Israeli controlled part of al-Khalil, called H2, this is normality. And for everyone coming from outside it quickly becomes it too. This summer, I spent a month in the West Bank, occupied Palestinian territories, to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). And I had to realise that even the events surrounding Netanyahu’s visit just became another dat – part of al-Khalili normality.

Al-Khalil – the occupation in a nutshell

Al-Khalil is the Israeli occupation in a nutshell. The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and gradually transformed into a disintegrated territory dotted by Israeli settlements which are deemed illegal under international law. The order chosen by the Israeli regime to handle the presence of two different populations – Israeli settlers and Palestinians – in the same territory is based on borders. Borders essentially regulate who is able to move freely where, when and under which circumstances. As the two groups inhabit the same space, bordering results in a system of segregation that traces through society instead of geographical fixed points. This manifests itself in a segregated road system throughout the West Bank and – less visible by eye but even more far-reaching – in two different legal systems leading to drastically unequal treatment for Israelis and Palestinians. While Israeli civil law is applied to the settlers, Palestinians are subjected to military law. In the old city centre of al-Khalil this order reaches its peak.

Al-Khalil is divided into two areas: H1 which comprises 80% of the city and is formally under control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and H2 in which Israel retains responsibility for security matters. Al-Khalil’s old city is part of the latter and through the restrictions imposed on it over the last 20 years it has transformed from a bustling market area into a ghost town. These restrictions are part of the security measures taken by the Israeli military in order to ensure the protection of about 700 settlers living amidst approximately 7,000 Palestinians. For the latter, lives have transformed into one big restricted zone (see grey area on the map).

In the grey-coloured area of H2 Palestinian movement is restricted by checkpoints and various road blocks. To some roads (indicated in red) Palestinians are completely denied access.

OCHA counts 121 obstacles (walls, slabs, fences and barriers) limiting free movement in this area including 20 checkpoints, 6 of which are fortified, equipped with face-recognition technology and metal detectors. For the Palestinian residents this means that going about any simple daily activity can become a lengthy and uncertain process. The Israeli security policies in al-Khalil do not only restrict their access to health, education, housing and work but also deeply affect their family lives and social fabric. As a result of the difficult living conditions in H2 the number of Palestinian residents has considerably dropped over the years. The existence of a restricted area is based on the Hebron protocol from 1997 that lead to the division of the city and called for a buffer zone between H1 and H2. However, the function of this buffer zone doesn’t correspond to its initial idea. Rather than preventing violence between Palestinians and Israeli settlers it has become a tool for the Israeli military to exercise violence against the local Palestinian population and effect their forcible transfer. Israel thus uses the buffer zone to solidify its colonial practices under the guise of security concerns.

Another example of who draws the borders around Khalil

Back to Netanyahu’s visit: After mid-day, H2 was under near complete lockdown. There was a massive police and army presence in the streets, several of them stationed on the roofs of Palestinian houses. 3 of the major checkpoints accessing the restricted area of H2 were closed for the whole afternoon. Whoever happened to be out at the wrong time, would spend their afternoon waiting in front of a closed gate.

And life stands still – Palestinians waiting in front of a checkpoint that stayed closed for more than 6 hours the day Netanyahu visited al-Khalil.

In the neighbourhood where the memorial ceremony took place, the Palestinian residents were put under curfew. A small demonstration took place close to the restricted area but within H1, which is formally under Palestinian control. The Israeli military didn’t hesitate to enter the area though as well as use cars and their Palestinian occupants as shields for their operations. Two demonstrators were arrested. In the evening, I thought to myself: “It could have been a lot worse.” It took me some time to realise how normalised the situation in al-Khalil had become for me in order to come to such a conclusion. Night raids, closed check-points, curfews and arrests. All of this has been happening for decades and so the 4^th of September 2019 was nothing new. It was just another example showing who draws and manages the borders around the lives of Khalilis. Whom those borders protect, and whom they hurt.

Israeli forces return to dehumanizing number system in wake of Hebron killings

26th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, West Bank, occupied Palestine

After completely closing Shuhada checkpoint to Palestinians in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on Thursday, 24^th March 2016, Israeli forces have now returned to the practice of ‘numbering’ Palestinian residents in order to restrict access to the adjacent neighborhoods. Soldiers are now barring all Palestinians without numbers, and sometimes even those already registered as residents, from entry into the closed military zone.

The neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida and the tiny strip of Shuhada Street that remains accessible for Palestinians after the closure of the rest of the street following the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre have been declared a closed military zone since November 1^st, 2015. Palestinian residents – in contrast to the Zionist extremist settlers living in the illegal settlements nearby – were forced to register with the Israeli forces as residents, and each given a number used to identify them. The closed military zone was designed deliberately to include the Palestinian neighbourhoods while excluding illegal settlements, thus facilitating settler movement on roads that connect the settlements inside the city center of al-Khalil with the Kiryat Arba illegal settlement on the outskirts of the city, roads that only settlers and Israeli forces are allowed to drive on.

Israeli forces completely closed the checkpoint on March 24th, barring any Palestinian from entering, after soldiers gunned down and killed Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif and Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, both 21 years old, summarily executing al-Sharif with a shot to the head after he was already lying incapacitated (warning: graphic footage including execution in video captured by Palestinian B’Tselem volunteer). Throughout the day, Palestinians trying to go back to their homes were denied passage through the checkpoint and Israeli forces at times forced people to wait for more than twenty minutes only to tell them that they would not be allowed in – even though they were officially registered, numbered residents. An elderly woman was repeatedly told by Israeli forces to ‘wait’ when trying to walk to her home through the checkpoint; only after waiting for more than twenty minutes was she finally told that no-one would be allowed to pass that day. She had to turn around and leave after standing outside the checkpoint for close to half an hour. Watch this video taken by the local activist group Youth Against Settlements of the old lady denied access.

As of Saturday, 25^th March, Israeli forces entirely returned to the practice of ‘numbering’ Palestinians, checking the numbers of anyone attempting to cross the checkpoint against a list of numbers of residents that have previously been registered. Many Palestinians were forced to wait for hours outside the checkpoint, only to be denied to go to their homes – even though they had registered and thus did appear as a number on the soldiers’ lists. The soldiers were extremely aggressive, yelling at Palestinians in the closed-off ‘room’ inside the checkpoint loudly enough to be clearly audible to anyone waiting outside. When Palestinians tried to seek shelter from the pouring rain in the vicinity of the checkpoint, soldiers exited the checkpoint, yelling and screaming at them to move back. All of the soldiers had removed the orange pin that acts as a safety on their Israeli-government-issued assault rifles – a practice that seems to have become common policy throughout occupied al-Khalil.

When a woman and her four children tried to pass Shuhada checkpoint, the three smallest children were initially allowed through. When Israeli soldiers delayed the mother and older daughter inside the checkpoint, continuously yelling at them, the young girl on the other side of the checkpoint started crying as she was waiting in the rain for her mother to be allowed to go home with them. After an ordeal of more than ten minutes, soldiers arbitrarily decided that the mother would not be allowed to pass – even though she is registered and numbered – and yelled at her till she finally left. Her children that had been allowed to pass earlier came back to be with their mother, the girl still crying. With many extremist settlers gathering and walking freely on Shuhada Street, the children were too terrified to go home without their mother.

ID with # circled red — The number 230 on the outside of this Palestinian ID has faded with age. It denotes that Israeli forces should theoretically allow its holder to pass into the Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street neighborhoods, but provides no protection against harassment, threats, abuse and being arbitrarily denied passage through Shuhada checkpoint

This practice of assigning numbers to Palestinians clearly demonstrates the intent to dehumanize them, to make them solely into ‘numbers’ as if they were not human beings. For the Israeli forces – and thus the government supporting and commanding them – this is precisely the case: Palestinians are not considered as human beings, but rather solely as ‘terrorists’ and potential threats. How this influences the behaviour of the Israeli forces was clearly demonstrated when on March 24th soldiers gunned down two Palestinian youths in Tel Rumeida and then executed one of them with a shot to the head at point blank range. A shot in the head of an unarmed man, struggling for his life and being denied any medical assistance, did not cause so much as a twitch from the soldiers looking on.

This practice of ‘numbering’ Palestinians in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada street, and of dehumanizing the entire Palestinian population, is a government policy that intends to force Palestinians out of the area declared a ‘closed military zone’ in particular and ultimately the whole of the occupied West Bank. These policies pave the way for the brutal actions must recently exemplified by the killings in Tel Rumeida, practices falling under the internationally recognized definition of ethnic cleansing which the Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 780 defines as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

Photo Story: A checkpoint in Hebron

14th January 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Checkpoints are numerous and inescapable in the H2 area of al-Khalil (Hebron), where thousands of soldiers guard around 600 Israeli zionist settlers occupying heavily militarised settlement enclaves in the heart of the most populous Palestinian city in the West Bank. The Israeli military imposes numerous restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the neighbourhoods of H2, affecting people as they attempt to live, work, study, and travel through their city. Shuhada checkpoint, leading from the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida into Palestinian-administered H1, is one of the larger and more heavily manned checkpoints.

One Israeli soldier looked through the purse of a young Palestinian woman as her daughter looked on. Even Palestinian children too young to carry bags for a soldier to search are subjected to the everyday sight of their older relatives being stopped, searched, questioned and detained by Israeli forces. Over a period of a couple of hours on Tuesday afternoon, an ISM activist witnessed Israeli soldiers stop and search around fifty Palestinian children, women, and men.

Barbed wire and fences frame the entry way into Shuhada checkpoint, as Israeli soldiers patrol the heavily militarised passage between the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Tel Rumeida and Bab el-Zawiye.

A very young Palestinian girl took a moment to look up at the heavily armed Israeli soldiers standing in her path. Armed with enormous rifles, chests strapped with body armour complete with pockets full of stun grenades and tear gas, the soldiers looked incongruous on the otherwise quiet, sunny street.

“I don’t understand why people think we want war, we just want peace,” one Israeli soldier told an ISM activist. The absurdity of his statement, as he stood with his rifle beside the checkpoint, seemed entirely lost on him. Deploying eighteen-year-olds with M16s to search kids’ shopping bags and their mothers’ purses, giving them control over the lives of Palestinians trying to keep surviving in the neighbourhoods of H2 in al-Khalil, creates a situation which, though it may sometimes seem quiet, is anything but peaceful.The soldiers stop whole families at the checkpoint: mothers, grandfathers, sisters laden with shopping bags. This young girl stood waiting off to the side as the Israeli military checked to make sure her relatives did not pose a “threat.”

VIDEO: Israeli soldiers close key checkpoint in Hebron

31st December | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

At approximately 14:30 yesterday afternoon, ISM activists approaching Checkpoint 56 from both directions found that it was closed and Palestinians were stuck on either side. Israeli soldiers gave conflicting excuses for closing the checkpoint, none of which were supported by any apparent evidence.

On the H2 (Israeli controlled) side of the checkpoint, ISM members were told that a youth had thrown a Molotov cocktail from the H1 (Palestinian Authority controlled) side. On the H1 side, a soldier shouted down to an activist: “Hey! You speak English? Tell the people we cannot open the checkpoint because the people on the other side are throwing stones!”

However, there were no stones on either side, nor were there broken glass or large patches of liquid on the ground as would be seen from a Molotov cocktail. A survey of the area showed nothing at all out of the ordinary.

This did not stop the soldiers from behaving in a crude manner, as shown in the video below. Palestinian human rights activist Issa Amro asked the soldiers why the people below, who were causing no problems, couldn’t pass. The soldier in the observation box shouted, “I hate you! F*** you! I’m gonna eat you!” The soldiers also launched a sound grenade, also without any apparent reason. When asked by an ISM activist why they would not open the checkpoint, the soldier simply referred to his commander.

Checkpoint 56 not only separates H1 and H2, but separates many Palestinians from their homes and workplaces. Hundreds of people, including children, pass through the checkpoint every week and are subject to random searches and detentions, which disrupt their day-to-day activities. Checkpoint closures like this are one more form of harassment people have become accustomed to because they can happen at any time.

VIDEO: No donkeys allowed

17th December 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Mohammad Saleh, a sixty-six-year-old Palestinian resident of Tel Rumeida, al-Khalil (Hebron), waited with his mule outside Shuhada checkpoint for nine hours over the course of two days. He spent four hours waiting before being allowed through on Monday (15/12/14) evening.

He then spent five hours Tuesday (16/12/14) attempting to cross in the opposite direction before eventually turning back, after being denied repeatedly by Israeli forces claiming that donkeys, mules, horses, and carts are not permitted to pass through the checkpoint.

Shuhada checkpoint serves as the only clear passage between the H2 (Israeli-controlled) neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida and the H1 (Palestinian Authority-administered) neighbourhood of Bab Al-Zawiye, a route many Palestinians must traverse regularly in the course of their work and daily routines.

Mohammad arrived at the Bab Al-Zawiye side of the checkpoint at 13:40 on Mondayafternoon, his mule laden with empty milk jugs and saddlebags packed with various provisions. Israeli forces refused to let him through, claiming no animals were allowed past the checkpoint – a claim no one, including other international organisations at the scene as well as the Palestinian District Coordination Office for al-Khalil, had ever heard before.

Mohammad explained that he had been allowed pass the checkpoint on Monday morning, with the promise that he would be let back through later in the day. When he returned, he found a new shift of soldiers and no one willing let him pass. The soldier manning the checkpoint claimed he needed permission from his commander to open the gate, which would allow Mohammad to pass with his mule.

An ISM volunteer at the scene later received a call explaining that the Israeli military’s new rule stated that horses, donkeys and mules were not permitted to pass through the checkpoint. No one, however, was able to explain why Mohammad had been allowed through that morning, but denied on his way home. “Look at my ID,” he told the soldier at one point, “I’m in your computer. I go through here all the time.”

He stayed waiting, sitting beside his mule on the cold concrete base of the fence, even as the afternoon turned into evening. The sky grew dark, though the lights from the checkpoint still illuminated the fences,
turnstiles, and barbed wire. Even the soldier seemed concerned, telling him to please go home, as it was cold and late and staying would not help him. But Mohammad had already made it clear he would not leave. About ten minutes later the soldier finally opened the gate, saying it was the “last time” the he would be allowed through. Although Mohammad heard the soldier’s message, it was clear he would not heed it. He intended to continue to resist, no matter what anyone told him.

Sure enough, the following morning he was once again standing outside the checkpoint, this time on the Tel Rumeida side, with full milk jugs tied to the back of his patient mule. The soldiers presented multiple reasons from denying him passage, from a prohibition on taking anything through the checkpoint too large to be carried through the turnstile, to the new rule against allowing donkeys, horses and mules through. ISM volunteers attempted to find a solution, offering to carry the milk jugs around the checkpoint and meet Mohammad and his mule on the other side. The Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint rejected all suggestions.

“Is the donkey the problem or the milk the problem?” One ISM activist eventually inquired.

“The donkey’s the problem,” a soldier replied.

The animal could have easily passed through the metal detector; only last night ISM activists had witnessed the ludicrous sight of Mohammad’s mule strolling through the concrete structure, empty milk jugs banging against the corners of the gateway. The turnstile served as the only obstacle to the his passage – an obstacle the soldier could easily remove by opening the gate on the other side of the metal detector and letting the mule pass around the turnstile and into Bab Al-Zawiye.

After five hours of waiting, Mohammad’s comment seemed by far the most accurate. “The soldiers are the problem,” he had responded in Arabic.

Barring donkeys, mules, and horses and carts is only the latest in a string of frustrating, humiliating regulations imposed on the people living near the checkpoint, who must pass through to work, study, and shop for essentials such as fresh food. Just a few days earlier a group of elderly Palestinians, ill people, young children, and teachers at a local school had also been forced to wait, some for up to three hours, before being allowed through.

When Israeli forces shut down the checkpoint after it was burnt nearly a month ago , barring most people from passing through for over three weeks, the Palestinians were forced to adapt. Local people know ways around the checkpoint; several paths lead through local families’ yards and over the walls and rubble between Tel Rumeida and Bab Al-Zawiye. These “rabbit runs,” however, are entirely unsuited to traveling through with a mule – as well as for anyone sick, elderly, or carrying large heavy objects.

Since the attempted burning of the checkpoint, the Israeli military rebuilt it larger and with more obstacles for anyone traveling through. One side now has a metal detector, and both sides are equipped with vertical metal turnstiles which are a major impediment to anyone trying to move through with large baggage. Soldiers continue to use the burning of the checkpoint to justify collective punishment imposed on the entire Palestinian population – young and old, men and women, healthy and ill – who live or work near the Shuhada checkpoint.

Any Palestinian might be stopped while attempting pass through. Even with the checkpoint officially open, far too many are. Soldiers regularly search bags and make people remove their belts and empty their pockets before being allowed through. These everyday humiliations accompany frequent ID checks and detentions, serving as an inescapable reminder of the illegal Israeli occupation. Soldiers present at checkpoints routinely cite newly imposed rules and orders from superior officers as reasons for denying people passage, but whether someone passes easily through a checkpoint or must wait for hours often seems to be determined by nothing more than the soldiers’ caprice.

Many Palestinians must pass through Shuhada checkpoint multiple times in a day, carrying items as diverse as fresh vegetables, tubs of oil, and gas for cooking and heating their homes. During the hours ISM volunteers stood waiting with Mohammed, they witnessed multiple people struggle with the cumbersome design of the rebuilt checkpoint. One woman was carrying too many grocery bags to be able to fit into the turnstile. Someone on the other side of the turnstile had to reach a hand between the metal bars and move one bag through, returning it to the woman once she had passed. Another Palestinian, this time a young boy, needed the help of multiple passers-by over several minutes to figure out how to get two tubs of oil
and a metal trolley through the turnstiles. Soldiers denied passage outright to boys who wanted to walk through the checkpoint with their bicycles.

At one point on Monday night, a group of off-duty soldiers ran up Shuhada street and stopped near the checkpoint to rest, stretching and laughing, their easy freedom of movement a stark contrast to experiences of Palestinians struggling through Shuhada checkpoint. Almost all of Shuhada street has been closed off to Palestinians, reserved instead for the settlers and soldiers occupying H2. Even Palestinians who manage to get through the checkpoint must pursue long, circuitous routes between the surrounding areas of al-Khalil. Many, especially the elderly or disabled, are effectively barred from traveling to significant portions of the city their families have lived in for generations.

“I want to resist,” Mohammad told the ISM activists the first day they waited with him. He made sure the man translating said it twice, to make sure the ISM volunteers understood. “I want to resist,” he said, after
over three long hours of waiting to be allowed through.