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The Siege on Palestinian Life

Palestinian life in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) (1) is heavily impacted by Israeli military policies that restrict movement and isolate and harass the civilian population. This state of "siege" takes the form of closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and walls. It is almost impossible to move people or goods within or out of the OPT, strangling the civilian population and devastating the Palestinian economy. This state of siege has intensified drastically since the beginning of the second Intifada (uprising) in September 2000.

Israel's siege is a form of collective punishment that violates the dignity of the Palestinian people, their basic human rights, and many articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation.

Relevant Facts

Closure

The term "closure" refers to the restrictions placed by Israel for security reasons on the free movement of Palestinian goods and labor across borders and within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These restrictions take three basic forms: (i) internal closure, the sealing off of Palestinian population centers within the OPT from one another (reinforced by checkpoints and curfews); (ii) external closure, the sealing off of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Israel proper and from each other; and (iii) the external closing of international crossings between the West Bank and Jordan, and between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, severely constraining the Palestinians' ability to travel to the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world (2).

• Since 1991, Israel has required every resident of the OPT wanting to enter Israel to obtain a personal exit permit from the occupation authorities, effectively controlling Palestinian movement into and out of the OPT and "closing" Israel to them (3).
   
• To enforce the closure, Israel set up checkpoints (see below) along its border with the OPT, between the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and within the OPT. Approvals are granted sparingly and according to criteria unknown to Palestinians (4).
   
• The severity of the closure changes depending on the circumstances. For example, after Palestinian violence against Israelis, or during Israeli holidays, the authorities impose a total closure during which no exit permits are granted. At times, Israel also imposes an internal closure on specific towns or villages in the West Bank (5).
   
• Since the outbreak of the second Intifada, Israel has imposed a total closure on the OPT and has prohibited Palestinian movement between the OPT and Israel and between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (6).

AFSC Principles and Position

The AFSC's position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is based on the Quaker belief that there is that of God in each person and a committment to nonviolent action for social change. Based on these beliefs and within the framework of international law and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the AFSC strives for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians that provides justice and security for all peoples living in the region.

Curfew

"Curfew" often means a total lockdown of a Palestinian town. During curfews, Palestinian residents remain under sustained house arrest, 24 hours a day, in some cases for days and weeks on end. Businesses are closed, the streets are empty, and life comes to a complete halt. Curfew may be lifted briefly for a few hours to allow residents to get food, water, and supplies. Lifting the curfew allows the civil administration to maintain utilities and provide services before the curfew is re-imposed (7).

• In theory, exceptions are made to Palestinian first aid personnel (ambulances). However, they are usually subject to cumbersome clearances and long delays. Curfews also apply to international aid workers (8).
   
• The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) often re-imposed curfew without notice to the population or Palestinian administration, causing havoc as civilians rush to return home.
   
• In the spring of 2002, following an escalation of violence, the IDF launched "Operation Defensive Shield" (March 29, 2002) and "Determined Path" (June 18, 2002), transforming many towns and villages into restricted military zones, with residents under sustained (often 24-hour) curfew for days at a time.
   
• At times, nearly 900,000 West Bank residents in 74 communities were under curfew and, on average, during the six-and-a-half month period between June 17 and December 31, 2002, 37 localities and 547,000 persons were directly affected. Nablus was the most severely impacted, with curfews in force for all or part of every day during the period (197 days from June 21, during which curfew was lifted for 1,069 out of 4,656 hours) (9).

Checkpoints and Roadblocks

One of the primary ways that the siege is enforced is through the blocking of access roads to towns and villages by means of staffed checkpoints or concrete blocks, dirt piles, or deep trenches. Since October 2000, most Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been closed off in this manner, and their residents severed from the outside world (11). As of September 2003, there are more than three hundred checkpoints and roadblocks in the OPT (12).

April 2002: Young boy at Kalandia checkpoint Photo: Emily Rosenberg

Human Impacts

The siege severely restricts civilian freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and within the territories. It prevents families from seeing each other for months and years. It restricts access to basic human rights such as medical care, work, and education. It complicates routine acts such as purchasing goods, visiting relatives, and studying at university. In many cases routine activities are impossible.

• Traveling even a short distance entails a lengthy, costly, and potentially dangerous journey. Detours to avoid blockades, checkpoints, and closed areas take civilians miles out of their way, often require changing vehicles multiple times at barriers, and involve the risk of being turned back, harassed, or sometimes shot (13).
   
• Israel's policy impairs access to medical treatment of Palestinians, and especially to residents of smaller villages and rural areas, which are home to about one-half of the Palestinian population. Medical services are primarily provided in hospitals and clinics in the cities.
   
• B'Tselem documented many instances in which soldiers at checkpoints prevented or significantly delayed patients and the wounded from crossing, which led to deterioration of their condition and even death (see the "Palestinian Health Care Crisis" fact sheet).

Economic Impacts

Because the Palestinian economy is heavily dependent on Israel, both as a market for Palestinian goods and for employment, these siege conditions have all but destroyed the already fragile economic situation. According to a May 2003 World Bank report (14):

• Sixty percent of the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a poverty line of $2 per day. The numbers of the poor have tripled from 637,000 in September 2000 to nearly two million today.
   
• Gross national income per capita has fallen to nearly half of what it was two years ago.
   
• More than fifty percent of the work force is unemployed.
   
• Between June 2000 and June 2002, Palestinian exports declined by almost a half, and imports by a third. Investment shrank from an estimated $1.5 billion in 1999 to a mere $140 million in 2003. Overall national income losses in just over two years have reached $5.4 billion - the equivalent of one full year of national income prior to the Intifada.
   
• More than half a million Palestinians in this formerly middle-income economy are now fully dependent on food aid. Per capita food consumption has declined by thirty percent in the past two years, and the incidence of severe malnutrition in the Gaza Strip was reported to be equivalent to levels found in some of the poorer sub-Saharan countries by Johns Hopkins University (15).

International Law

• Humane treatment for protected persons (Article 27): "Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity."
    
• Protection from collective punishment (Article 33): "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."
   
• Assuring an adequate standard of living (Article 39): "Protected persons who, as a result of the war, have lost their gainful employment, shall be granted the opportunity to find paid employment. . . . Where a Party to the conflict applies to a protected person methods of control which result in his being unable to support himself, and especially if such a person is prevented for reasons of security from finding paid employment on reasonable conditions, the said Party shall ensure his support and that of his dependents."
   
• Access to food and medical care (Article 50): "The Occupying Power shall not hinder the application of any preferential measures in regard to food, medical care and protection against the effects of war . . ."
   
• Maintaining educational services (Article 50): "Should the local institutions be inadequate for the purpose, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements for the maintenance and education, if possible by persons of their own nationality, language and religion . . ."
   
• Assuring humanitarian access (Article 59): "If the whole or part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the Occupying Power shall agree to relief schemes on behalf of the said population, and shall facilitate them by all the means at its disposal. . . . All Contracting Parties shall permit the free passage of these consignments and shall guarantee their protection (17)."

More Information

• American Friends Service Committee - Middle East Peacebuilding Programs
  http://www.afsc.org/israel-palestine/
   
• Amnesty International, an international human rights organization, conducted a study called "Israel and the Occupied Territories, Surviving Under Siege: The Impact of Movement Restriction on the Right to Work."
  Palestinian Authority Page:
  http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Pse-summary-eng
   
• B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has extensive sections on aspects of the siege:
  http://www.btselem.org
   
• The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which governs the treatment of civilians in time of war, can be found on the UN Commission for Human Rights website:
  http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm
   
• Palestine Red Crescent Society is a major provider of humanitarian, health and social services in the OPT. Their website has a regularly updated curfew monitoring page and casualty statistics, a picture archive and more:
  http://www.palestinercs.org
   
• Palestine Monitor, the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organization's website, has online resources, including fact sheets, eyewitness pieces, and photos:
  http://www.palestinemonitor.org
   
• United Nations Humanitarian Information Centre in the Occupied Palestinian Territory includes updated information on the humanitarian situation, as well as documents from the UN and other agencies:
  http://www.reliefweb.int/hic-opt/
   
• The World Bank conducted a comprehensive study that deals with many aspects of the siege, entitled "Twenty-Seven Months - Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis: An Assessment." West Bank and Gaza Strip Page (select "West Bank and Gaza Strip" from the dropdown menu):
  http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/mna/mena.nsf

Five things you can do to help

1. Sign up for email action alerts posted by the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees or Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (www.upmrc.org and www.phr.org.il)

2. Volunteer with a medical relief team in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Emergency care and surgery skills are particularly needed. Contact the Jewish American Medical Project to participate in an upcoming delegation or contact Palestinian and Israeli health organizations directly and offer your volunteer services. (www.vopj.org/jamp.htm)

3. Hold a forum in your community and invite a speaker to talk about the impact of the military occupation on medical care and public health. Speakers are available through the AFSC in Chicago (312) 427-2533, or via the AFSC national website.

4. Join national advocacy efforts coordinated through the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org).

5. Contact your elected officials and voice your concern about the Palestinian health crisis. Use the facts and information provided to begin your dialogue.

Endnotes

1. This term refers to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, which were occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, as was the Syrian Golan Heights.
2. World Bank, Twenty-Seven Months - Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis: An Assessment, (The World Bank: May 2003), 1.
3. B'Tselem, "Freedom of Movement - Policy of Closure, "B'Tselem.org [website]; available from: http://www.btselem.org/english/
   Freedom_of_Movement/Closure.asp; internet; accessed September 30, 2003.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. UN Humanitarian Information Centre in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, "Curfews and Closures," UN OCHA [website]; available from: http://www.reliefweb.int/hic-opt/curf1.htm; internet; accessed September 30, 2003.
8. Ibid. Also see Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, www.upmrc.org.
9. World Bank, Twenty-Seven Months, 1.
10. Palestine Red Crescent Society, "Cumulative Curfew Hours Percentage by District - to Midnight Nov. 18, 2003," Palestinercs.org [website]; available from http://www.palestinercs.org/; internet; accessed November 26, 2003.
11. B'Tselem, "Freedom of Movement - The Seige, "B'Tselem.org[website]; available from: http://www.btselem.org/english/
    Freedom_of_Movement/Siege.asp; internet; accessed September 30, 2003.
12. Amnesty International, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Surviving under siege: The impact of movement restrictions on the right to work, [PDF report online]; available from http://web.amnesty.org/
13. internet; accessed October 2, 2003, 3.
14. Amnesty International, Surviving Under Siege, 20.
15. World Bank, Twenty-Seven Months.
16. The study referred to by the World Bank is Nutritional Assessment of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, (September 2002). The Assessment was funded and supported by CARE International with a grant from the USAID. The survey was implemented by Al Quds University (Jerusalem) and the Global Management Consulting Group (Ramallah) with technical assistance from Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore). The report is available on the following websites: www.carewbg.org and www.care.org.
17. Amnesty International, "Israel and the Occupied Territories: An ongoing human rights crisis," Amnesty.org [website]; available from: http://web.amnesty.org/pages/iot_home; internet; accessed October 2, 2003.
18. Refugees International, "Human Costs of Non-compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention "ReliefWeb [website]; available from: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf08760accebf 3bcb3549256cee000ba9a9? OpenDocument; internet; accessed November 26, 2003.
19. Amnesty International, Surviving Under Siege, 65.
20. Amira Hass, "Clarifying the Occupation Lexicon," Ha'aretz, June 11, 2003; quoted in Znet [website]; available from: http://zmag.org internet; accessed October 3, 2003.

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