A British subject was permitted to visit a relative in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank of Israeli occupied Palestinian territory in February of this year. In six weeks in the settlement he learned enough to confirm that life for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation is still a harsh, humiliating experience, as it was in the reports during the years 2010 -2013. Not much has changed.
In September 2011, for example, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian (OCHA) said there were 522 roadblocks and checkpoints obstructing Palestinian movement in the West Bank, up from 503 in July 2010. That number did not include the temporary checkpoints known as "flying checkpoints," of which there were 495 on average per month in the West Bank in 2011, up from 351 on average per month in the previous two years.
Palestinian travel was, and still is, restricted or entirely prohibited on 41 roads and sections of roads throughout the West Bank, including many of the main arteries, covering a total of over 700 kilometers of roadway. Israelis travel freely on these roads.
According to the World Bank, the recession in the Palestinian economy since 2000 has been “among the worst in modern history.” The restrictions on freedom of movement that Israel imposed on Palestinians was the primary cause of the decline of the Palestinian economy and chronic increases in unemployment and poverty across the occupied territories.
A report by the World Bank published in May 2007, stated that economic recovery and sustainable growth within the West Bank would “… require a fundamental reassessment of closure practices, a restoration of the presumption of movement, and review of Israeli control of the population.”
A World Bank’s later Economic Monitoring Report, March 12, 2013, stressed that it was important to recognize that the prolonged system of closures and restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank caused lasting damage to the competitiveness of the Palestinian economy.
More than half the land in the West Bank, much of it agricultural and resource rich, was, and still is, inaccessible to Palestinians. The first comprehensive study of the potential impact of this “restricted land,” released by the World Bank, (October 2013) set the loss to the Palestinian economy at about US $3.4 billion.
Restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement also seriously affected Palestinian access to medical care, including emergency medical treatment.
Palestinian ability to reach medical care and healthcare is uncertain and arbitrary.
Soldiers at checkpoints consistently stop ambulances and patients. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, reported 112 deaths and 35 stillbirths in one year as a result of the prevention of medical personnel and patients from crossing checkpoints. The World Health Organization (WHO) strongly criticized “the incidents involving lack of respect and protection for Palestinian ambulances and medical personnel, as well as the restrictions on movement imposed on them by Israel ... in violation of international humanitarian law.”
According to the WHO, at least 69 women gave birth at check-points since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 to 2006. These women endured labor in some of the most unsanitary and inhumane conditions possible.
The risk to themselves and their babies was grave. Out of these 69 cases recorded by WHO, 35 of the newborns died and five mothers also perished.
Unfortunately, the Patrick Henry cry, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” translates easily in many languages, including that of suicide bombers.
Ron Estes served 25 years as an Operations Officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.
