The shopkeeper's story

MOHAMMAD is an accountant who can't make his books balance. Like many Palestinians he has led a chequered working life – frequently changing tack in an effort to keep his family fed and his head above water.

I see thousands of others every time I go to Qalqilya North* where just one turnstile allows 4000 workers with permits to enter Israel. They are the lucky few but it's tough. Herded like cattle, yelled at and sometimes subjected to sound bombs, tear gas and shooting in the air, they wait in line before they can even begin their journey to work.

A brisk business takes place in falafel, coffee and tea. One stallholder tells me he opens at 1.30am. But the turnstile doesn't open until 4 and it usually takes three and a half hours till everyone is through. I know, because it's my job to count the workers, time the process and report back to UN agencies.

We meet one man who lives in a village where people are locked in at night. Although Azzun Atma is in the Palestinian West Bank, it is completely surrounded by the Separation Barrier and he can't get out till 5am.

This means he can't possibly get to Qalqilya North in time to get to work in Israel on a Sunday morning, the first day of the week. So he leaves home on Saturday, spending the night with a relative before returning for his week's work in Israel (he has a highly prized weekly permit).

And how sad it is when we see a worker who has queued in the dark for two hours – or longer – coming back into the West Bank. The queue was too slow, his transport left without him and he's lost that day's pay.

But Mohammad doesn't even have that chance. He used to work as an accountant in Jordan until the mid-80s when he was suddenly required to join the army or leave the country. He came back to Jayyous and managed fine with his 20 square kilometres of olive trees supplemented with a job as a construction worker in Israel.

When the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising) took place in the late 80s-early 90s, like most workers he was excluded from Israel and he started a chicken farm and various other small ventures from his home.

In 2002 Israel started to build the Separation Barrier to keep out suicide bombers, but the route did not follow the internationally recognised border between Israel and the West Bank. It cut into Palestinian land and Jayyous was cut off from 75 per cent of its land.

Sometimes Mohammad, 48, has been issued with a permit to go through the fence and sometimes not. His wife and his sons have never obtained permits so they haven't been able work there at all.

He opened a shop in the village so he could pay others to work the land and to augment the family’s income, investing 33,000 shekels [approximately USD 8,400 or EUR 6,000]** in clothes and bed linen. The shop failed and he sold the whole lot to another business for 5,000 shekels.

"I lost 28,000 shekels," he said.

So he tried a food store, borrowing 75,000 shekels to get started but again it hasn't worked out. Everyone here is struggling; few have jobs and selling on credit is normal.

"Now I have in my book maybe 20,000 shekels owing to me and maybe 15,000 in the shop (stock)," he said.

So even if people paid cash and bought everything he has, he couldn't pay his creditors – who nag him constantly.

Meanwhile he has four sons to put through university as well as an elderly father to support.

"I don't know how to continue our life," he said.

If the occupation ended would things be better?

"I don't think about this – this is a dream, a fantasy," he said.

* Qalqilya North is one of the few checkpoints which can be justified on security grounds. It gives direct access into Israel. The vast majority of the 600 or so obstacles erected by the occupying power prevent people moving freely between Palestinian towns and villages.

** 1 USD = 3.94 shekels (NIS)

1 EUR = 5.56 shekels (NIS)