…to sterile roads

Although the bypass roads were not built in the interest of Palestinian cities and villages, whose growth they served to block, before the second Intifada most of the roads were accessible to virtually everyone. Their use by Palestinians was limited, however, by a number of factors, both large and small: lack of entry and exit roads near Palestinian cities; almost complete lack of road signs indicating Palestinian towns; public transportation stops restricted solely to Israeli colonists and soldiers.

When the second Intifada began, at the end of 2000, Israel drastically cut Palestinian access to many of the roads in the West Bank, including various bypass roads. It is a regime of arbitrary and unwritten prohibitions, categorised by B’Tselem, the Israeli association for human rights, as follows: a) roads that Palestinians are completely forbidden to use; b) roads that can be used by Palestinians only if they have a special permit that is extremely difficult to obtain and with a restricted use of vehicles; c) roads whose access is controlled by checkpoints, some permanent and others temporary.

The regime is implemented by officers of the Israeli security forces through verbal orders and has dramatic effects on mobility. Palestinians caught using a road forbidden to them or lacking a permit risk being arrested and having their vehicle confiscated. B’Tselem notes regarding this regime of prohibitions that:

The policy is entirely based on verbal orders given to soldiers in the field. The strongest proof of the regime is the local population’s awareness of its existence. Palestinians have almost completely ceased using many of these roads, even when entry to the road is not blocked by physical obstacles or staffed checkpoints. In response to questioning by B’Tselem, the IDF let it be known that an order from 1970 granted the authority to restrict travel and movement “to anyone who is an authorized military commander.”

This regime of prohibitions is enforced by the use of permanent and temporary checkpoints, barriers that block the roads, and military patrols. In many cases, travel on the roads using one’s own vehicle is forbidden. This is why, in order to be able to travel, Palestinians use group transport vehicles that shuttle between one roadblock and another.

B’Tselem estimates that there are seventeen roads whose access is completely prohibited to Palestinian vehicles (about 75 miles); ten roads whose access is partially prohibited (150 miles); and fourteen roads whose use is restricted (225 miles). It must be kept in mind that these distances are relative to a territory with an average width of 30 miles and an average length of 190 miles. Forbidding access to even a few miles of a road can mean causing entire areas to be disconnected.

Travel from A to B

In January 2003 we conducted a field study whose results, presented in the form of a video installation, reveal the effects of the regime imposed on the sterile roads.

We conducted the following experiment on two different days: the first day we traveled along the route taken by an Israeli colonist to go from the Kiriat Arba colony to the Kedumim colony; the next day we traveled along the route taken by a Palestinian to reach the city of Nablus, starting from Hebron. Both trips start and finish at the same latitude.

The first trip, in an Israeli taxi, took one hour and five minutes; the second, using various Palestinian group taxis, took five hours and twenty minutes. The difference in the trip times was due to several factors: along the route taken by the Palestinian traveller, we had to pass through a number of checkpoints, cover some distances on foot, and change taxis; whereas for the route the Israeli traveller took, we used the bypass roads and passed through the checkpoints without being stopped.

Israeli route: By-pass road A60 South. Palestinian route: The old city of Hebron.

Israeli route: Tunnel by-passing the Palestinian route: Avoiding checkpoint.
Palestinian city of Beit-Jala.

What follows is our logbook of the two trips.

Palestinian trip From Hebron to Nablus: 60 miles. Total time: 5 hours 20 minutes.
January 13, 2003. We leave from the historical center of Hebron in the H1 special zone, where Palestinians are under a semipermanent curfew. On foot, we head toward the first checkpoint separating the historical center from the rest of the city. We take a group taxi which drives us as far as the limits of Area B. The road is blocked by a barrier built by Israel to stop vehicles with white Palestinian license plates from entering Bypass Road 60. We get out of the taxi and pass through the barriers on foot. On the other side, we find a bus reserved to Palestinians that goes as far as Bethlehem. During the trip, the bus stops to take on other passengers. There are no cars with white license plates on this part of the road; the bus is the only vehicle allowed to travel along the bypass road from Hebron to Bethlehem.

We stop in front of a checkpoint at the gates of Bethlehem. The soldiers search the bus. Shortly afterwards, we get off the bus and pass through the checkpoint on foot. On the other side, we find other group taxis which we use to continue our trip. We cannot proceed north using Bypass Road 60, which bypasses Bethlehem going toward Jerusalem, because it is forbidden to Palestinians who do not have the special entry permit. We are forced to detour toward the south-west. At Beit Sahur, we change taxis again. We go down a secondary street that is particularly dangerous, with lots of checkpoints. Whether or not we’ll be able to take this route is uncertain; we come across various Israeli army jeeps that are patrolling the roads. The taxi drivers call each other on their mobile phones to exchange information on which roads are passable and free of military patrols. Taking various winding roads, we get to Al ‘Ubeidiya. The taxi driver asks us to get out here because there’s a mobile checkpoint up ahead that he can’t go around with the car. Following the other passengers, we go around it on foot and further on, 500 feet in the distance, we find other taxi drivers who are waiting to take us to the next checkpoint.

We reach Abu Dis. The taxi stops next to huge reinforced concrete retaining blocks that divide Abu Dis from East Jerusalem. Here we find other taxis that continue on toward the north. They confirm that we can get at least as far as Ramallah. But they don’t know if we can get any further than that. They tell us that once we get to Ramallah we’ll find out if there are any taxis for Nablus. During the trip, we leave Area B near Ma’ale Admim, taking Road 1 until it intersects with Road 458. Here, we see a lot of cars with yellow Israeli license plates and group taxis with white Palestinian plates. We get to the Khalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah. At the checkpoint, we find a taxi for Nablus. We go back along a section of the road to be able to hook up with Bypass Road 60 going north. We are surrounded by a large number of colonist cars.

We continue our trip without stopping. Various colonies come into view as we drive past them. When the road narrows and becomes unpaved, there are no more colonies to be seen. Long before reaching Nablus, the taxi abandons the main road to take a secondary street running through an olive orchard. We ask the taxi driver why he doesn’t continue along the road that leads directly to Nablus. He answers that further on there’s a checkpoint that you can’t get through. We go on through the olive trees until we come out again onto the bypass road. We drive along it for a short distance until coming to the Nablus entry checkpoint. We cross it on foot, showing our European passports to the soldiers, who are very surprised to find us there. Many of the Palestinians are forced to go back. Once we’ve crossed the checkpoint, we take a new taxi which drives us to Nablus. The taxi drivers in Nablus tell us that we can’t continue north because there are no passable roads. The army has closed all the roads today, they say. But after waiting for a few minutes, one taxi driver claims that he knows which roads to take to get around the checkpoint. We get into his taxi and take a dirt road, in the middle of the countryside, until the taxi driver tells us to get out before a checkpoint that will lead us back onto a normal road. In the distance, soldiers shout at us with rifles pointed that no one is allowed through here. Our journey ends here.