West Bank Road Closures Turn Medical Emergencies and Daily Commutes into Deadly Ordeals

Israel's tightening network of military checkpoints and iron gates across the occupied West Bank is transforming routine journeys into potentially fatal ordeals for Palestinians, with the latest casualty being a 66-year-old woman who died after delays in reaching hospital care.

Zahriya Abu Hijleh, a diabetic patient from the town of Deir Istiya northwest of Salfit, collapsed on September 20 while attending her niece's wedding reception. According to her family, the medical emergency quickly escalated when the ambulance summoned to transport her could not enter the town because an iron gate controlled by Israeli forces at the entrance remained closed.

The delay proved catastrophic. An ambulance from the local medical centre transported Zahriya to the gate, where she was removed from the stretcher, carried on foot past the barrier, and transferred to a second ambulance waiting on the opposite side. Medics later determined she had suffered a pulmonary embolism and required immediate treatment. She died before receiving it.

"My mother was breathing her last; had the gate been open, we wouldn't have lost her on the way," her son Mohammed Abu Hijleh told Al Jazeera, noting that his mother had no prior health conditions apart from diabetes. "Sadly, she died due to the delay."

The incident is not isolated. It reflects a broader pattern of movement restrictions that have intensified across the West Bank, where checkpoints and physical barriers have become a pervasive feature of Palestinian daily life. According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, 942 checkpoints, closure points, and obstacles were recorded across the occupied territory as of September 25, up sharply from 793 in March 2024. The combined length of these obstacles reaches approximately 107.7 kilometres, according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israel periodically imposes comprehensive closures on the West Bank, citing security concerns and Jewish holidays. The current closure, running from September 27 to October 3, coincides with Sukkot. During these periods, Palestinians face hours-long waits at sealed checkpoints, while Israeli settlers continue to move freely between West Bank cities and, in some cases, enter Palestinian villages under army protection.

For families like that of Ibtihal Mansour from Nablus, the consequences extend far beyond inconvenience. On a recent Friday, Mansour and her family set out from the village of al-Janiya near Ramallah at 10am, expecting a 45-minute journey home. Instead, they encountered closures at the Atara and Ein Siniya checkpoints north of Ramallah, trapping them in the area. Attempts to use alternative routes west of Ramallah failed when they found the road between Ramallah and Nablus blocked by settlers, halting all vehicle traffic.

"We remained on the roads, trying to find any way through, until midnight, a span of more than 14 hours," Mansour told Al Jazeera. Her children, exhausted and crying after hours confined in the vehicle, became the centre of a further trauma. At a roadblock near Nablus in an area called al-Lubban Asharqiya, she said a soldier ordered her to wake her children. When her 11-year-old son did not stir, the soldier punched him in the head, jolting him awake in tears.

"The scene was heartbreaking; I felt a deep lump in my throat and profound sorrow," she said. The family was ultimately forced to turn back and spend the night at a relative's home in Ramallah before attempting the journey again the following morning.

Such ordeals have become so commonplace that municipalities in some areas have converted wedding halls and mosques into temporary shelters for Palestinians stranded by closures. Local residents near checkpoints have organised food donations for those unable to reach their destinations.

The humanitarian implications are severe. Access to workplaces, schools, universities, medical facilities, and agricultural land now depends on whether specific roads and crossings happen to be open at any given moment. The CRRC warns that the closures effectively fragment Palestinian communities, severing social and economic ties between cities, towns, and villages.

For patients requiring urgent medical care, the stakes are highest. Hospitals and specialist facilities are often located in urban centres, and reaching them requires crossing multiple checkpoints or finding alternative routes that may themselves be blocked. In Zahriya Abu Hijleh's case, a journey that should have taken eight minutes became an impassable ordeal.

The restrictions also carry broader economic costs. Workers unable to reach jobs lose income; students miss classes; farmers cannot tend fields or harvest crops. Over time, these disruptions erode the economic foundations of entire communities.

Israel maintains that the closures are necessary for security. But critics argue that the scale and permanence of the infrastructure—now numbering close to a thousand obstacles—suggest a system designed not merely for temporary security needs but for the entrenchment of control over Palestinian movement and access.

For families like the Abu Hijlehs, the debate over security justifications offers little comfort. What remains is the memory of a mother who might have survived had a gate been opened, and a son left to wonder what might have been.