JERUSALEM, September 14, 2026 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces on Monday tightened movement restrictions at two major checkpoints serving as the entrances to the northern occupied city of Jerusalem, according to local sources.
They said that the occupation forces beefed up measures at the Qalandiya and al-Jib checkpoints, causing a severe traffic congestion and obstructing the movement of Palestinians traveling to and from occupied Jerusalem.
According to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, Qalandiya and al-Jib military checkpoint are among the main crossings controlling movement between the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Qalandiya Checkpoint operated 24 hours a day until the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal aggression against Gaza, allowing Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and West Bank residents holding permits to enter Israel to pass through. It was closed to Palestinian travel on October 7, 2023, and reopened for East Jerusalem residents only on October 23, 2023, operating Sunday through Thursday from 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. On February 7, 2024, it reopened to West Bank residents holding permits to enter Israel during the same limited operating hours, while remaining closed on Fridays.
Al-Jib Checkpoint is a permanently staffed crossing in the Israeli apartheid and segregation barrier, west of the village of al-Jib, and is staffed by Border Police and private security companies.
The occupation forces have tightened military measures across the occupied West Bank hours after the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners as part of the Gaza ceasefire went into effect on January 19, 2025. Such restrictions were further tightened under the pretext of and since the onset of the Israeli-Iranian war, dismembering and isolating cities and governorates from one another using military gates, barriers, and concrete blocks.
The Israeli military measures are in parallel with ongoing attacks by Israeli colonists across the West Bank to terrorize Palestinians and displace them from their lands to seize them and build illegal Jewish colonies that separate Palestinian communities.
Israel severely restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement within the occupied West Bank through a complex combination of approximately 898 fixed and flying checkpoints and gates, including 18 gates that have been installed since the start of 2025 and 146 others installed in the aftermath of October 7, 2023, settler-only roads, over 200 military bases, and various other physical obstructions.
Closures, besides other measures taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 59-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler colonial project, which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.
K.F.
