Albanese: Israeli checkpoints turn West Bank into isolated enclaves

Albanese said the checkpoint system turns Palestinians’ daily journeys into an ordeal, making access to work, school, hospitals, or family members dependent on a soldier’s decision or whether a gate happens to be open. She said these restrictions rob Palestinians of hours and days of their lives and separate families from one another.

She added that the scale of the suffering cannot be reduced to numbers, as the system of movement restrictions deprives students of education, workers of their livelihoods, and patients of access to potentially lifesaving medical care.

925 checkpoints, movement obstacles across West Bank

According to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were 925 movement obstacles across the occupied West Bank, including East Al-Quds, as of December 2025, the highest number recorded in two decades and 43% above the average for the previous 20 years.

The figures illustrate the expanding system of restrictions imposed on Palestinian movement, with checkpoints and military gates positioned at the entrances to cities, towns, and villages and along major roads. These obstacles force Palestinians to take longer routes and leave everyday journeys vulnerable to sudden delays and closures.

Four-month-old baby dies at checkpoint

Albanese highlighted the case of four-month-old Ahmad Zaid, who she said died last July after Zionist regime's forces prevented his family from reaching an ambulance waiting on the other side of a military checkpoint.

The special rapporteur said Ahmad’s death was a tragic example of the direct human consequences of the movement restrictions. Millions of Palestinians can be forced to spend hours reaching workplaces, schools, or hospitals, change their routes without warning, or find themselves completely unable to reach their destination.

A 15-minute journey can take hours

Recent investigations reviewed by the special rapporteur, drawing on field reports, surveys of hundreds of Palestinians, satellite imagery, and billions of GPS data points, found that movement restrictions have intensified since October 2023.

Around Nablus, waiting times and delays were found to be worse than anywhere else in the occupied West Bank. For residents of Beit Furik, a town of around 16,000 people with only one access point, a journey that would normally take about 15 minutes by car has stretched to more than five hours — and, on the worst days, as long as 10 hours.

A survey cited by Albanese found that nearly half of respondents said military checkpoints and gates had affected their ability, or their spouse’s ability, to find employment.

Checkpoints disrupt education, work and healthcare

The consequences extend far beyond travel delays, affecting nearly every aspect of Palestinians’ daily lives, from reaching schools and universities to getting to workplaces and hospitals.

Albanese linked the proliferation of checkpoints to the rapidly deteriorating situation across the occupied West Bank, including settler violence, accelerating settlement expansion, home demolitions, forced displacement, and the destruction of Palestinian agricultural life.

She warned that Palestinian communities are increasingly being transformed into isolated enclaves, connected or cut off from one another according to decisions made by Israeli authorities.

In her assessment, checkpoints are not simply individual obstacles to movement but part of a broader system of control over Palestinian land and the Palestinian population.

Albanese: Checkpoint system is unlawful

Albanese linked the restrictions imposed on Palestinians to the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 advisory opinion on the unlawfulness of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory and the policies associated with it.

She noted that the court found that Zionist regime's policies had fragmented the occupied West Bank, separated East Jerusalem from it, and isolated Palestinian communities in enclaves, obstructing the Palestinian people’s exercise of their right to self-determination.

Albanese called on the international community to act on the court’s findings, warning that continued failure to do so contributes to perpetuating the system of fragmentation and control imposed on Palestinians.

She stressed that Palestinians must be able to move freely across their land, live together as one people, and exercise their right to self-determination, as Zionist regime's military restrictions continue to shape virtually every aspect of daily life for millions of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.