Palestine on Friday accused Israel of enforcing a "de facto annexation" of the occupied West Bank, citing an extensive network of military checkpoints as a tool to fragment the territory and undermine hopes for a two-state solution.
In a strongly worded statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the checkpoints and iron gates scattered across cities, towns, and governorates as "collective punishment" against Palestinians.
“These checkpoints function as an apartheid system, turning the West Bank into isolated enclaves,” the ministry said, noting that many gates are guarded by Israeli soldiers and operate only during limited hours, severely restricting Palestinian movement.
The ministry accused Israel of pursuing a larger plan to impose "spatial division" across the West Bank, facilitating the expansion of Israeli settlements, isolating Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings, and annexing large swaths of land.
Palestinians are forced to navigate rugged, time-consuming routes inaccessible to regular vehicles, while Israeli settlers use exclusive access roads, the ministry added.
The statement pledged continued efforts to expose Israeli violations and called on the international community to end its "double standards" regarding Palestinian rights. The ministry also urged immediate international intervention to halt what it described as a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" and annexation in the West Bank.
According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a government agency, the number of permanent and temporary checkpoints, including iron gates and military barriers dividing Palestinian territories, stands at 872. Since October 2023, 156 new iron gates have reportedly been installed.
Tensions have been high across the occupied West Bank amid Israel's ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 43,700 people, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023.
At least 783 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 6,300 others injured, by Israeli army fire in the West Bank during the same period, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The escalation follows a July opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land "illegal" and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
