Israel imposed a comprehensive week-long closure on the West Bank, during which crossings were closed and restrictions on Palestinian movement tightened, amid more than 300 Israeli checkpoints forming part of a wider system of obstacles and closure points.
Closure decision and tighter inspections at checkpoints
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz issued the decision last Sunday, following a recommendation from the Israeli army and citing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The closure was to remain in force until Saturday 3 October. The measure coincided with Israeli forces tightening inspections and checks at checkpoints and gates, cutting or restricting routes to Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
Under normal circumstances, West Bank residents face movement restrictions because of hundreds of checkpoints, gates, earth mounds, concrete blocks and other obstacles. In Ramallah and al-Bireh governorate, Israeli forces closed roads and entrances to the towns of Turmusaya, Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and al-Taybeh on Sunday.
Soldiers also set up checkpoints in Yabrud, Ein Sinya and Jaba, where they searched vehicles and checked passengers’ identities as part of the measures accompanying the closure. The decision also applied to Palestinians who still held permits to work inside Israel or in settlements, after the number in this group fell sharply following the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
Closure disrupts work of patients and medical teams
Access to Israeli industrial zones established in the West Bank was limited to workers classified by the Israeli authorities as “essential”. The impact of the restrictions extends beyond workers and travel to workplaces, affecting patients, health teams and ambulances.
The total number of such applications reached 87,427, compared with a rejection or suspension rate of 18% in 2022, reflecting tighter restrictions faced by patients seeking access to treatment facilities. Work inside Israel has for decades been linked to labour-market conditions in the West Bank, where high unemployment and low wages push Palestinians to seek jobs with Israeli employers.
Restrictions imposed for nearly six decades on the economy, population movement and access to land have also increased some workers’ dependence on these jobs. In September 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on Israel to end what it described as its “unlawful occupation” within a year.
In the period that followed, Israeli forces intensified raids on Palestinian towns, alongside increasing attacks by settlers and the expansion of settlements deemed contrary to international law. Before the war in Gaza began, about 160,000 Palestinians from the West Bank worked for Israeli employers, according to the Palestinian Economic Policy Research Institute, MAS.
Most of them worked inside Israel, while the remainder held jobs in settlements. After most permit holders were barred from entering, the number fell to about 27,300 workers by mid-2024.
Restrictions on workers’ entry coincided with a rise in unemployment in the West Bank from 12.9% in September 2023 to 30.7% a year later, according to the Israeli rights organisation Gisha. The weekly closure adds further pressure on the limited number of workers who retained entry permits or access to industrial zones.
925 obstacles restrict movement for West Bank residents
Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, indicate that the number of Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank exceeds 300. By December 2025, these checkpoints formed part of 925 obstacles restricting movement for about 3.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the highest number recorded by the office since surveys began 20 years ago.
The figure recorded at the end of 2025 was 43% higher than the annual average during the monitoring period, which stood at 647 obstacles. The number rose from 642 in June 2023 to 793 in March 2024, then to 849 in February 2025, before reaching 925 at the end of the year. In 2025 alone, Israeli forces established more than 120 new checkpoints.
The structure of the obstacles shows a shift from relying mainly on soldier-operated checkpoints towards wider use of iron gates, earth mounds and other physical barriers. Many of these points are closed almost permanently, while others operate intermittently and without warning, increasing travel distances and times and isolating Palestinian communities from one another.
The composition of the restrictions has also changed over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, fixed checkpoints and gates accounted for only 15% of all obstacles, while earth mounds and temporary concrete blocks made up about 73%. Today, checkpoints and gates account for nearly 60% of the total, which OCHA describes as entrenching the restriction system rather than treating it as a temporary or emergency measure.
The Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission provides a newer tally by adding obstacles established by Israel over the past two months to UN data, bringing the total to 942 checkpoints and obstacles. The tally includes 824 fixed checkpoints and closure points, as well as 118 linear obstacles with a combined length of 107.7 kilometres.
Distribution of checkpoints and alternative travel routes
Hebron governorate has the largest geographic concentration of checkpoints and fixed closure points, with 221, followed by Ramallah and al-Bireh with 160, Nablus with 120, Bethlehem with 78 and Jerusalem with 62. These obstacles cut roads between towns and main streets or restrict their use, forcing hundreds of thousands to take longer routes to workplaces, schools, treatment facilities and emergency medical care.
According to OCHA data, 459 obstacles, or about half the total, separate Palestinian towns and villages from main roads. A further 121 obstacles block access to Route 60, the main artery linking the northern and southern West Bank.
The separation wall extends for 712 kilometres, with 85% of its route inside the West Bank. Palestinians holding West Bank identity cards can cross it through only three of the 13 checkpoints, provided they obtain an Israeli permit, a process described as difficult.
One of the main crossing points is Qalandiya checkpoint, the primary crossing between Ramallah and East Jerusalem, which previously handled about one-third of total movement between the West Bank and Israel. Checkpoint 300, also known as Gilo checkpoint, cuts the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and is the main route for Palestinians working in East Jerusalem and the central cities.
Eyal checkpoint serves workers coming from Qalqilya, where unemployment has risen amid the effects of the separation wall, as well as workers from the northern West Bank generally. Taybeh checkpoint lies south of the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm, while Tarqumiya checkpoint is near the southern city of Hebron.
A large share of the permanent checkpoints is concentrated in Area H2 in the centre of Hebron, where 34 of the 89 permanent checkpoints are located, accounting for 40% of them, in addition to 101 other obstacles. About 7,000 Palestinians and several hundred settlers live in the area. Since October 2023, entry to Area H2 has been restricted to registered residents.
They pass through three checkpoints that operate daily from 7am to 8pm and close outside those hours.
Alongside the system of fixed checkpoints, Israeli forces set up an average of 15 mobile or “flying” checkpoints every week on West Bank roads. These temporary points do not appear on maps produced by the United Nations or Palestinian institutions.
