Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank are choking the Palestinian economy

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that Israeli military checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank are disrupting movement, raising costs and worsening conditions for Palestinian businesses and workers. The article focuses on the Nablus area, where a Palestinian dairy producer, Al-Kamel Dairy Factory in the village of Rujeib, has faced delayed milk shipments, reduced sales and layoffs as trucks spend hours at checkpoints such as Awarta and others around the city.

According to the report, the problem has intensified since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, when the number of military restrictions in the West Bank expanded. Al Jazeera cites the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission as saying there are about 925 checkpoints and military gates in the territory, including 147 in Nablus governorate. The article also says transport movement has fallen by more than half since the start of the war, adding pressure to already weak commercial activity.

The story quotes local business owners and a Palestinian business journalist describing Nablus as increasingly cut off from surrounding towns and villages. A March 2025 study by the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute is cited as estimating daily economic losses from checkpoint delays and extra fuel costs, though the broader impact is described as even harder to measure.

The report argues that the restrictions do more than slow traffic: they interrupt supply chains, reduce consumer access to markets and limit job opportunities. In a broader context, such barriers have long been tied to the movement controls of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, but the article says the recent expansion has made recovery and economic growth even more difficult.