Prison Pack

Yehudit Kirstein

Gateways to Hell: Military Checkpoints in the Occupied West Bank

Yehudit Kirstein-Keshet explains the horror of checkpoints as a tool  toward s  Israel’s realisation of maximum territory with a minimum of Palestinians; yet another element in the ongoing system of population transfer that began with the Naqba-Disaster of 1948 and that continues, by various means, up to the present time. (June 2007)

What’s New at www.ihrc.org.uk?

In this ‘What’s New’ the latest issue of the Palestine Internationalist, an important development in the case of Babar Ahmed, IHRC’s critical response to Salman Rushdie’s Knighthood, as well as an event commemorating the 2000th day of detention at Gitmo

Gateways to Hell: Military Checkpoints in the Occupied West Bank

Checkpoints, closures, curfews and the bureaucracy of permits and licences that back up these measures have long been the tools that facilitate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. However, since September 2000 the system has been intensified, ‘industrialised’ and, increasingly, brutalized. This article will make the point that the very existence of this massive scheme of obstacles, even when no physical or verbal abuse are perpetrated there, is in itself an abuse of a fundamental human/civil right: freedom of movement. More than this, allegedly a necessary security measure, the checkpoints are in fact instruments of control and humiliation of a civilian population and the paralysis and disruption of their economy and society (World Bank, 2007). Checkpoints are a tool towards Israel’s realisation of maximum territory with a minimum of Palestinians; yet another element in the ongoing system of population transfer that began with the Naqba-Disaster of 1948 and that continues, by various means, up to the present time.[1]