‘Living in a Cage’: West Bank Checkpoints Proliferate After Gaza Truce 

Commuters wait in their vehicles at the Israeli Atara checkpoint on route 465 near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
Commuters wait in their vehicles at the Israeli Atara checkpoint on route 465 near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
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‘Living in a Cage’: West Bank Checkpoints Proliferate After Gaza Truce 

Commuters wait in their vehicles at the Israeli Atara checkpoint on route 465 near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
Commuters wait in their vehicles at the Israeli Atara checkpoint on route 465 near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 22, 2025. (AFP)

Father Bashar Basiel moved freely in and out of his parish in the occupied West Bank until Israeli troops installed gates at the entrance of his village Taybeh overnight, just hours after a ceasefire began in Gaza.

"We woke up and we were surprised to see that we have the iron gates in our entrance of Taybeh, on the roads that are going to Jericho, to Jerusalem, to Nablus," said Basiel, a Catholic priest in the Christian village north of Ramallah.

All over the West Bank, commuters have been finding that their journey to work takes much longer since the Gaza ceasefire started.

"We have not lived such a difficult situation (in terms of movement) since the Second Intifada," Basiel told AFP in reference to a Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.

He said he was used to the checkpoints, which are dotted along the separation barrier that cuts through much of the West Bank and at the entrances to Palestinian towns and cities.

But while waiting times got longer in the aftermath of the October 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war, now it has become almost impossible to move between cities and villages in the West Bank.

Commuters wait in their vehicles at the Israeli Atara checkpoint on route 465 near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 22, 2025. (AFP)

- Concrete blocks, metal gates -

Left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli authorities ordered the military to operate dozens of checkpoints around the West Bank during the first 42 days of the ceasefire.

According to the Palestinian Wall Resistance Commission, 146 iron gates were erected around the West Bank after the Gaza war began, 17 of them in January alone, bringing the total number of roadblocks in the Palestinian territory to 898.

"Checkpoints are still checkpoints, but the difference now is that they've enclosed us with gates. That's the big change," said Anas Ahmad, who found himself stuck in traffic for hours on his way home after a usually open road near the university town of Birzeit was closed.

Hundreds of drivers were left idling on the road out of the city as they waited for the Israeli soldiers to allow them through.

The orange metal gates Ahmad was referring to are a lighter version of full checkpoints, which usually feature a gate and concrete shelters for soldiers checking drivers' IDs or searching their vehicles.

"The moment the truce was signed, everything changed 180 degrees. The Israeli government is making the Palestinian people pay the price," said Ahmad, a policeman who works in Ramallah.

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani did not comment on whether there had been an increase in the number of checkpoints but said the military used them to arrest wanted Palestinian gunmen.

"We make sure that the terrorists do not get away but the civilians have a chance to get out or go wherever they want and have their freedom of movement," he said in a media briefing on Wednesday.

Members of the Israeli security forces check vehicles at the Israeli Atara checkpoint on route 465 near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 22, 2025. (AFP)

- 'Like rabbits in a cage' -

Basiel said that now, when the gates are closed, "I have to wait, or I have to take another way" into Taybeh.

He said that on Monday people waited in their cars from 4:00 pm to 2:00 am while each vehicle entering the village was meticulously checked.

Another Ramallah area resident, who preferred not to be named for security reasons, compared his new environment to that of a caged animal.

"It's like rabbits living in a cage. In the morning they can go out, do things, then in the evening they have to go home to the cage," he said.

Shadi Zahod, a government employee who commutes daily between Salfit and Ramallah, felt similarly constrained.

"It's as if they're sending us a message: stay trapped in your town, don't go anywhere", he told AFP.

"Since the truce, we've been paying the price in every Palestinian city," he said, as his wait at a checkpoint in Birzeit dragged into a third hour.

- Impossible to make plans -

Before approving the Gaza ceasefire, Israel's security cabinet reportedly added to its war goals the "strengthening of security" in the West Bank.

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel "is merely shifting its focus from Gaza to other areas it controls in the West Bank".

A 2019 academic paper by Jerusalem's Applied Research Institute estimated that at the time Palestinians lost 60 million work hours per year to restrictions.

But for Basiel, the worst impact is an inability to plan even a day ahead.

"The worst thing that we are facing now, is that we don't have any vision for the near future, even tomorrow."



Lebanon Bans Dealing with Hezbollah Financial Entity

A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
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Lebanon Bans Dealing with Hezbollah Financial Entity

A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
A view shows Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo

Lebanon's central bank has banned banks and brokerages from dealing with a Hezbollah-affiliated financial institution, according to a circular, a sign of the group's diminished sway over state affairs since its devastating war with Israel.

Keeping up military pressure on the Iran-backed group, Israel on Tuesday launched some of its heaviest airstrikes since a ceasefire in November, saying it hit training camps and weapons depots in east Lebanon. A security source in Lebanon said 12 people were killed, five of them Hezbollah fighters, Reuters reported.

Hezbollah has faced mounting pressures since the war, including financial ones.

In the circular, dated July 14 and reviewed by Reuters, Banque du Liban prohibited all licensed financial institutions in Lebanon from dealing directly or indirectly with unlicensed entities and listed Hezbollah's Al-Qard Al-Hassan as an example.

The US Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on Al-Qard Al-Hassan in 2007, saying Hezbollah used it as a cover to manage "financial activities and gain access to the international financial system".

Bolstered by its powerful arsenal, Hezbollah had long exercised decisive influence over Lebanese state affairs, but it was unable to impose its will in the formation of a post-war government in February.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan, founded in 1983, describes itself as a charitable organisation which provides loans to people according to Islamic principles that forbid interest. Israel struck some of its branches during its war with Hezbollah last year.

Operating as a not-for-profit organisation under a licence granted by the Lebanese government, it has more than 30 branches, mostly in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

SHADOW ECONOMY

A Lebanese official said the central bank move had been in the works for months, and reflected US pressure on Lebanon to take action against Hezbollah's financial wing.

Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank, said Lebanese banks were already careful to avoid dealing with Al-Qard Al-Hassan because it is under US sanctions.

"The important point is that finally the authorities are addressing the shadow economy in Lebanon, which is the real problem," he said, adding that authorities had long failed to address its "toxic effects".

In June, the European Commission included Lebanon in an updated list of high-risk jurisdictions presenting strategic deficiencies in their national anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.

Last year, global financial crime watchdog FATF placed Lebanon on its "grey list" of countries under special scrutiny.