Friday, June 17, 2011
Israeli Checkpoints
In The West Bank
These checkpoints are NOT between Israel and Palestine, but they seperate Palestinian villages and towns from each other and from the roads that connect them. One of the things to consider is the impact of checkpoints on health and health care access. As you can imagine, it is a disaster for both critical, acute care as well as primary, preventative care. You can be waiting for hours before they decide whether or not you are allowed to pass.
There are both permanent checkpoints as well as "flying checkpoints". Permanent checkpoints are well established structures that most often have people sitting in watchtowers, even when the checkpoints are not open and people can't pass. The photo shows Qalqiliya check point outside Jerusalem. Non Jews have to pass through these corridors to show your ID and to have yourself and your obags scanned.
Flying checkpoints move from place to place and there are many, many of them. In this pictures, you can see a flying checkpoint on the only road that connects two Palestinian villages that were separated by the wall-Qalqiliya and Habla. The soldier is checking IDs and trunks of cars.
