What 1150 Palestinians Told Us

Introduction

Ask any Palestinian in the West Bank about checkpoints and everyone will have a story to tell, about delays, and separation and humiliation. Checkpoints have been a defining feature of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank for generations. And in the last three years, their numbers have expanded massively. So have their corrosive fallout.

The Palestine Reporting Lab, Lighthouse Reports and ARIJ collaborated with the Institute for Social and Economic Progress, a Palestinian research organization, to poll people across the West Bank about the impact of movement barriers on Palestinian life. The poll reveals a shared West Bank experience of fragmentation and suffocation from a system of mass movement control imposed by the Israeli military.

The survey was conducted in two parts, one in May that polled 550 people and another in July that polled a separate group of 600 people, all distributed across the West Bank.

Findings

79%

Four in five people polled (79 percent) say that their movement has decreased compared with before October 2023.

Findings

75%

Three quarters say they have close relatives in other cities or governorates and nearly all those people (94 percent) said they were separated from those relatives by checkpoints or gates. About as many said that the barriers have meant they visit these relatives less often.

Findings

25%

A quarter of parents say their children have never met certain close relatives because of checkpoints.

Findings

31.6%

Nearly a third of parents (31.6 percent) said that road delays related to checkpoints have prevented them from seeing their children during their waking hours.

Findings

>50%

More than half of people report that they leave home very early to avoid delays at checkpoints.

Findings

~50%

About half of people say that checkpoints have made it difficult for them or their spouse to obtain work.

Findings

30%

30 percent of people say that checkpoints have at some point prevented them from starting or completing university.

Findings

62%

62 percent of people say that checkpoints have caused them difficulty accessing medical services.

Findings

42%

42 percent of people say that they have considered moving or have moved to another town/city or to another governorate because of the delays and unpredictability in travel time caused by checkpoints, gates or closures. A quarter of these people have actually moved.

Findings

60%

Nearly two thirds of people (60 percent) say that humiliation or fear are the primary emotions they experience when encountering checkpoints.

Findings

39%

Of those people who said they’d been stopped in a military checkpoint in the six months prior to the survey, 39 percent say their vehicle was searched by a soldier, 21 percent said they were physically searched by a soldier, 14 percent said that a soldier pointed a gun at them and 13 percent said they were verbally assaulted by an officer.

Findings

92%

92 percent of people in the West Bank say they have never visited the Gaza Strip, even once in their life. For people under the age of 45, it is 96 percent.

Findings

70%

70 percent of people under the age of 25 say they have never visited the shores of Palestine.

Findings

30%

30 percent of people under the age of 25 say they have never in their life left the governorate where they live.