Movement Restrictions beyond Security: Wheelchairs, bicycles and family visits
“‘Stop Apartheid’ at Gilo checkpoint”: Over 3000 men wait in line to pass the checkpoint into Jerusalem each workday morning. (Photo: EAPPI Rónán Quinn)
I was on my way to Jerusalem for a day off, when I saw a typical case of rejection at the large terminal-like checkpoint called Gilo (see photo): A middle age couple and their daughter were at the first ID check, just past the first metal turnstile, past the eight meter high concrete wall. The father was pleading with the soldier in Hebrew through the glass to be let through. I waited outside the turnstile, and when they passed by me, their request to pass denied, I asked what the problem was. The daughter, in her early twenties answered, “I go to the university in Canada, and I have a week visa to visit my parents. We want to go to Jerusalem but we can’t. We need to get a permit.” Special permission to visit Jerusalem must to be applied for months in advance and is usually not granted.
During the Easter holidays, some Palestinian Christians were given special permission to visit the Holy Sites in Jerusalem. Palestinian Muslims are much less likely to receive special permission to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque, the 3rd most revered Muslim site in the world. Both Palestinian Christians and Muslim women, who meet for joint activities at the Arab Education Institute have said, “This is Israel’s way of dividing the Christians and the Muslims. People say that the Muslims hate the Christians, but this is not true. We have lived here together for generations in peace.”
In the occupied West Bank there are 522 Israeli closure obstacles – these include checkpoints, gates, road barriers, and earth mounds. The road barriers prevent Palestinians from travelling on the Israeli-only roads used by settlers of the West Bank to travel to Israel. Gates restrict access of Palestinian farmers to their land; they are allowed access at certain times of the day. Over 90 percent of these closures are “internal” - they restrict movement of Palestinians within the West Bank.1
According to a field worker for an international organization that compiles statistics about access and restriction of movement in the West Bank, “The checkpoints are not here for security. They are here to make things so difficult for Palestinians, that they will either immigrate or not travel outside of their town or village.”
The movement restrictions that are a part of the daily life of Palestinians sometimes manifest in displays of absurdity. On April 28th, a man in a wheelchair, with his parents and little brother tried to pass through Gilo checkpoint on their way to a doctor’s appointment in Jerusalem. There were about 40 men waiting in the metal detector hall, along the metal railing. They passed the man from the wheelchair over the heads of the men waiting, and the wheelchair followed. Inside the room with the metal detectors, were two soldiers behind glass. The man, then seated in his wheelchair could not fit through the detector that people walk through. His mother carried him through. The soldier asked us to put the wheelchair on the conveyor belt. It did not fit so we began to take it apart. After this proved futile, the soldier called the commander, and the family through a special door.
After about 30 minutes spent inside Gilo checkpoint, the man in the wheelchair and his parents passed through Gilo, but the 14 year old son was turned away because he did not have the right documentation.
“Is he a bike race participant?” An Israeli soldier with a Palestinian flag at Jabba checkpoint (Photo: EAPPI Caroline Borden)
More Palestinians on wheels were turned away en masse at a more happy event. Over 300 Israelis, Palestinians and internationals planned to bike 50 kilometres from Ramallah to Jericho, a route that is entirely inside the West Bank. The bike race was organized by the YMCA as a Palestinian/ international sporting event for peace and tolerance. After about 10 kilometres from the starting point in Ramallah, we arrived at Jabba checkpoint. We were told we could not pass. We stood around in our YMCA T-shirts with our bikes in piles for an hour and half as organizers talked to the soldiers and police. One participant secretly placed a Palestinian flag in the uniform of one of the soldiers (see photo). The soldier did not look happy when his fellow soldiers pointed it out. The director of the YMCA urged the participants to be polite, “We’ve made our point. Let’s go home.”
The organizer of the event, Khader S. Abu Abbara, expressed in his press release: The main message of the bike race is, “No to checkpoints and yes to freedom of movement.”
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Footnotes
1. United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Data current as of October 2006.
