West Bank town becomes 'big prison' as Israel fences it in

Highlights: 

• Only one entrance left open for town of 8,000 people
• West Bank checkpoints tightened since outbreak of war in Gaza
• Palestinians say they are cut off from livelihood and land
• Israelis say barriers needed to protect settlers

A five-metre-high metal fence slices across the eastern edge of Sinjil, a Palestinian town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Heavy steel gates and roadblocks seal off all but a single route in and out of the town, watched over by Israeli soldiers at guard posts.

"Sinjil is now a big prison," said Mousa Shabaneh, 52, a father of seven, watching on in resignation as workers erected the fence through the middle of the nursery on the edge of the town where he planted trees for sale, his sole source of income.

"Of course, we're now forbidden from going to the nursery. All the trees I had were burned and lost," he said. "In the end, they cut off our livelihood."

Walls and checkpoints erected by Israeli forces have long been a part of day-to-day life for the nearly 3 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. But many now say that a dramatic increase in such barriers since the start of the war in Gaza has put towns and villages in a state of permanent siege.

The fence around Sinjil is a particularly stark example of barriers that have sprung up across the territory, becoming an overwhelming feature of daily life. The Israeli military says it erected it to protect the nearby Ramallah-Nablus highway.

"In light of the recurring terror incidents in this area, it was decided to place a fence in order to prevent stone-throwing at a main route and repeated disturbances of public order, thereby safeguarding the security of civilians in the region," it said in a statement.

Because residents are still permitted to enter and exit through the single remaining entrance, the policy is deemed to allow "free access" to the town, the military said.

CUT OFF FROM LAND

The people who live there now have to walk or drive through narrow, winding streets to the sole allowed entry point. Some cross road closures on foot to reach cars on the other side.

Those who once earned their livelihoods in the surrounding land are effectively cut off, said Bahaa Foqaa, the deputy mayor. He said the fence had enclosed 8,000 residents inside barely 10 acres, cutting them off from 2,000 acres of surrounding land which they privately own.

"This is the policy that the occupation army uses to intimidate people and break the will of the Palestinian people."

Israel says its fences and barriers in the West Bank are necessary to protect Jewish settlers who have moved there since Israel captured the territory in a 1967 war.

Israel Gantz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council which governs the 47 Israeli settlements in the part of the West Bank where Sinjil is located, said the town's fence was needed because its residents had thrown stones and molotov cocktails at cars on the nearby highway, solely because the occupants were Jewish.

"A carte blanche lifting of the restrictions on Arab Palestinians would encourage the mass murder of Jews," he told Reuters.

Some 700,000 Israelis now reside in territory Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider such communities a violation of the Geneva Conventions which ban settling civilians on occupied land; Israel says the settlements are lawful and justified by historic and biblical Jewish ties to the land.

After decades during which Israel paid lip-service to the prospect of an independent Palestinian state, the far-right Israeli government now includes prominent settler activists who openly proclaim their aim to annex the entire West Bank.

HALF OUR LIFE IS ON THE ROADS

Israel increased its military presence in the West Bank immediately after Hamas' surprise attack in October 2023, which precipitated war that has devastated the other main Palestinian territory, the Gaza Strip.

Overnight, mounds of earth and heavy boulders were placed on roads. Then heavy metal gates, usually painted yellow or orange, were installed and locked by the military at entrances to Palestinian communities, often leading to roads also used by settlers.

The military established new permanent checkpoints. So-called flying checkpoints, set up suddenly and without warning, became more frequent.

Sana Alwan, 52, who lives in Sinjil and works as a personal trainer, said what was once a short drive to reach Ramallah can now take as long as three hours each way, with no way of knowing at the start of the day how long she will be stuck at checkpoints. Work has slowed because she can no longer promise clients she can reach them.

"Half of our life is on the roads," she said.

While the West Bank has largely been spared the all-out assault waged in Gaza, life has grown increasingly precarious. A ban on entering Israel for work abruptly cut off the livelihoods of tens of thousands of workers. At the start of this year, tens of thousands of West Bank residents were displaced by an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in Jenin in the north.

Mohammad Jammous, 34, who grew up in Jericho and lives in Ramallah, used to see his family almost every week. With the hour-long drive now typically stretching to several hours each way, he says he is now usually able to visit only once a month.

The Israeli military said its forces operate in a "complex security reality", and checkpoints must be regularly relocated and set up at new locations to monitor movement and respond to threats originating from Palestinian communities.

Officials in the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under Israeli occupation, suspect that the stifling impact on the economy and ordinary life is intentional. They say it could backfire against Israel by driving more youths to sympathise with Hamas.

"They are doing everything they can to make life extremely difficult for our people," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa told reporters last month.