UN Finds 40 New W. Bank Roadblocks in Two Months to be 572 at Least

22 September 2007

In the displayed picture, the Zionist soldiers are seen at the gates of a checkpoint at the controversial separation barrier and "Kalandia checkpoint" set up by the forces , on the main artery road leading from the West Bank city of Ramallah to Jerusalem, May 2007.

Despite repeated promises to reduce the number of roadblocks in the West Bank, the Zionist forces have in fact added dozens of new ones, according to the United Nations report.

Ehud Barak promised U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week to remove 24 roadblocks and consider additional alleviations of movement restrictions on the Palestinians. This followed a similar promise to alleviate movement restrictions that Ehud Olmert made to the Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the number of roadblocks has now reached 572, an increase of 52 percent compared to 376 in August 2005, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In the past two months alone, the occupation forces put up 40 new roadblocks, OCHA said.

The occupation forces did remove a small fence along Road 317, in the Southern Mount Hebron region, doing away with 29 barricades. But OCHA found that 48 new roadblocks, mostly embankments preventing access to various roads, were put up.

Altogether, there are 476 unmanned roadblocks in the West Bank, consisting of concrete cubes, earthen embankments and other barricades blocking roads and exits from villages and towns.

The number of manned roadblocks has also increased, from 86 in July to 96 today, the UN found. Most of them are manned by soldiers round the clock, but some are manned only a few hours a day.

Since April, the occupation forces leadership has refused to provide data about the number of roadblocks. In the past, occupation officials said that many of the roadblocks were added to protect settlers, and not only to prevent martyrdom operations in the occupied land in 1948. The UN figures do not include checkpoints set up along the Green Line.