Moving
Crossings, gates, checkpoints and closed land: the state of each place that decides whether people reach their work.
The board
Closed or barredOpen, limited or slowOpen
Kerem Shalom
Open, limited
Gaza–Israel, goods
The only cargo crossing working. Traders collected 788 truckloads between 21 and 27 September, about 10% below the four-week average of 871.
Zikim
Closed since 24 May
Gaza–Israel, goods, north
Shut for nearly five months, leaving the north to goods brought from the south.
Shelter materials from Jordan
15 trucks a week
Offloaded at Kerem Shalom one day a week
At this pace 500 truckloads of shelter items would take more than seven months. Timber, cement and metal sheeting for repairs are still blocked.
Farmland south and south-west of Jenin
Barred despite coordination
Fandaqumiya, Jaba’, Silat al-Dhahr, around Tarsala
Tear gas fired at farmers heading to the harvest; hundreds of families barred from their land on 13 and 14 October.
Deir Istiya, Farkha, Haris, az-Zawiya, Silwan
Owners turned away
Olive groves
In the harvest’s first days owners were sent back from their own land, their ID cards and sometimes their tools taken.
Kafr ad-Dik groves
Out of reach for four years
Two plots north of the village
Fares al-Dik has not reached his 550 olive trees in four years.
Awarta checkpoint
Waits of up to four hours
Nablus
Milk trucks from Al-Kamel Dairy wait up to four hours; sales fell 30–40% and at least 12 workers were laid off.
Settlements and industrial zones
Closed 27 Sep–3 Oct
Holiday “general closure”
Palestinian labourers were kept out through Sukkot; about 9,000 hold permits for settlements or nearby industrial zones. No later report of the permits’ state.
Each place keeps its last reported state and the date of that report. No report, no mark: a place drops off the board when nobody has reported on it for a month.
What the closures cost
Counts from the West Bank, each with who counted.
925
checkpoints and military gates in the West Bank, 147 of them in Nablus governorate
Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, via Al Jazeera, 10 Sep
191,146
working hours lost to checkpoint delays every day, about ₪2.8m
MAS study, via Al Jazeera, 10 Sep
+20%
transport costs since checkpoint and gate closures
Federation of Chambers of Commerce, via Palestinian Information Center, 13 Oct
737
olive plots where coordination is required or Israelis are barred, 70 more than last year
Israeli Civil Administration, via The Times of Israel, 8 Oct
Photograph
