Israel has sealed the occupied West Bank for a week through Saturday, citing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the closure on military recommendation, shutting all crossings and tightening controls at checkpoints territory-wide. Palestinians with work permits — already a shrunken pool — are barred from entering Israel except those deemed essential for Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank. The closure sits atop a permanent infrastructure of control. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 925 obstacles restrict the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians across the West Bank and East Jerusalem as of December. These include 89 checkpoints staffed around the clock, 218 partial checkpoints staffed intermittently, 232 road gates (159 frequently closed), 114 linear closures such as earth walls and trenches, 167 earth mounds, and 105 roadblocks. More than 300 are classified as checkpoints proper. The economic consequences are stark. Before the war on Gaza began in October 2023, approximately 160,000 Palestinians from the West Bank worked for Israeli employers — most inside Israel, the rest in settlements. By mid-2024, that number had collapsed to about 27,300 after Israel barred most permit holders. Unemployment in the West Bank rose from 12.9 percent in September 2023 to 30.7 percent a year later, according to the Israeli rights group Gisha. The checkpoint system doesn't just restrict movement — it fragments territory. Major crossings like Qalandiya (Ramallah to East Jerusalem), Checkpoint 300 (Bethlehem to Jerusalem), Eyal (northern West Bank), Taybeh (near Tulkarem), and Tarqumiyah (near Hebron) control access between Palestinian population centers and employment, healthcare, education, and holy sites. During the current closure, Israeli forces in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate blocked roads and sealed entrances to multiple towns including Turmus Aya, Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara, and Taybeh. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution in September 2024 calling on Israel to end its "unlawful" occupation within a year. Israel has since intensified raids, deployed soldiers alongside settlers during attacks on Palestinian towns, and expanded settlements deemed illegal under international law. The checkpoint infrastructure is not a security response that fluctuates with threat levels — it is a permanent territorial grid that tightens and loosens but never dismantles. The Sukkot closure also cuts off access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. Palestinians are denied access to their holiest sites so that a Jewish holiday can proceed without friction — a stark illustration of which population's religious practice is structurally prioritized. In Yabroud, Ein Siniya, and Jaba, soldiers set up checkpoints to search vehicles and check IDs, adding active harassment to passive barriers. What this system produces is not security but dependency and demographic control. Nearly six decades of occupation have restricted Palestinian economic development, land access, and movement so thoroughly that 160,000 workers were forced to seek employment inside their occupier's borders. When that employment was revoked, unemployment nearly tripled. The checkpoint grid ensures that this dependency is the only available economic relationship — and that it can be switched off at any time.
