Barriers and Roadblocks in the
Mt Hebron Regional Council
How can the movement of 97.5% of the population be restricted?
Settlers make up only 2.5% of the total population in the area of Mount Hebron. In order to establish Jewish supremacy and maintain the Israeli control over the region, the movement of Palestinians on the roads has been dramatically restricted. Our mapping of all the checkpoints and roadblocks reveals that Palestinian freedom of movement in the area has never been so tightly controlled or under such severe threat as it is today.
Restricting the freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank is probably the most prominent physical manifestation of the Israeli apartheid regime. It is enforced through numerous military orders, fences, checkpoints, roadblocks, and military posts scattered across the West Bank.
Obviously, the severe restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank did not begin with the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023. However, the freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank has never been under such intense control and threat as it is today. This is why we have decided to dedicate our resources and time to map and document the primary tools Israel uses in order to restrict Palestinian movement: Checkpoints and Roadblocks.
On December 15, 2024, the Yesha Council released a document titled "Strategic Change in the Concept of Security in Judea and Samaria". Section 2 of the document, signed by most of the heads of regional and local councils in the West Bank, states the following:
Changing the freedom of movement policy on highways in a way that will make it harder for terrorists and weapons to pass through Judea and Samaria and will ultimately lead to the closure of the security checkpoints.
This project focuses on Mount Hebron, but it follows a previous project from May of this year, in which we published a map of the checkpoints and roadblocks in the area west of Bethlehem. In that case, the ratio of Israeli to Palestinian population favored the Israelis, due to the way Israel engineered the region's borders. This time, we have taken it upon ourselves to map a much larger area with a significantly larger Palestinian population. This makes the challenge for the Israeli authorities in this area much more complex. However, in both cases, the system of checkpoints and roadblocks follows the same model and principles that Israel applies throughout the West Bank.
The heads of the settler councils who signed the letter can therefore rest assured: there is not a single place in the entire West Bank where Palestinians benefit from a "freedom of movement policy”.
The Main Findings
In total, we identified 220 checkpoints and roadblocks in the surveyed area, divided as follows:
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149 improvised roadblocks made out of rocks and dirt
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52 closed checkpoints
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7 open checkpoints
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12 manned checkpoints
A few comments regarding the findings:
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One characteristic of the roadblocks phenomenon is the ongoing "cat and mouse" dynamic: The army closes roads, Palestinians create improvised, often uneven detours, which the army closes as well and then, the cycle starts again. As a result, improvised roadblocks are sometimes breached. We also mapped breached roadblocks we encountered, fully aware that they could be sealed again at any moment.
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Checkpoints, by their nature, can be open and closed periodically. We aimed to label and categorise them based on their typical state. The same applies to manned checkpoints, they are not necessarily manned at all times, but frequently and most of the time.
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In addition to the checkpoints and roadblocks we mapped, railings, trenches, mounds of dirt, concrete blocks, and rocks were installed along dozens of kilometers of bypass roads, in a way that prevents access to the bypass roads from the side. These measures are not marked on the map, though their impact on Palestinian freedom of movement is significant.
Mounds of dirt placed along side road 317 south of the Palestinian village of As Samu’
The Method
Like every other aspect of the Israeli apartheid regime in the West Bank, the system of roadblocks and checkpoints operated by Israel was built, developed, and perfected over many years.
The system is guided by two main principles, the principle of separation and the principle of flexibility:
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The Principle of Separation: Designed to prevent Palestinians from moving freely on the main roads, while allowing settlers to move on the same roads without any restriction.
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The Principle of Flexibility: Allows the army to open and close roads for Palestinian traffic at any given moment, at its discretion, and increasingly, to the discretion of the settlers.
An improvised roadblock placed by the army south of Hebron
The borders of the area we mapped:
The Hebron subdistrict (Hebron governorate) is the largest and most populated of the West Bank subdistricts, covering approximately 996 square kilometers. According to estimates by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, around 846,000 Palestinians reside there. At the heart of the district is the city of Hebron, the second-largest city in the West Bank (after East Jerusalem). Surrounding Hebron are several large villages, each with tens of thousands of residents, as well as smaller villages - some are hamlets of the larger villages, while others are independent.
On the other hand, this area has the fewest settlers compared to other parts of the West Bank’s mountain ridge that are located north of Mount Hebron. The area covered by the current mapping project overlaps with the southwestern part of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, which includes the isolated and violent settlement of Karmei Tzur, deliberately placed between the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar and the Palestinian town of Halhul, as well as the entire territory of the Mount Hebron Regional Council. This area contains 23 official settlements (two of which, Avigail and Asahel, are undergoing retroactive legalisation procedures) and several dozen illegal outposts.
The largest settlement in this area is Kiryat Arba, home to around 7,600 settlers. The other settlements in the area are much smaller, with a total of about 13,000 settlers. In total, around 21,000 settlers currently reside in the Mount Hebron area, making up about 2.5% of the total population. This figure underscores the need for intensive use of physical measures aimed at controlling and restricting the movement of the remaining 97.5% of the population.
A checkpoint placed by the army on the southern access road to the Palestinian village of As Samu’
Green light
“For me, it's like living in a miracle, a kind of miraculous time. It's like being at a traffic light; you hear beep beep, and then, when it turns green, tick tick tick. I told him at Bezalel that my priority is Mount Hebron, and he agreed.”
This statement was made in July 2024 by the Minister of "Settlement and National Missions" Orit Struck, herself a resident of the settlement in Hebron, during a meeting with settlers at one of the outposts of the settlement of Susya. The practical manifestations of Struck's words are visible in numerous locations across Mount Hebron, particularly since October 7th: Kilometers of new illegal roads, new outposts and farms, newly established sitting areas and springs (most of them artificial pools), and, of course, new checkpoints. The goal is clear: expansion into new territories, takeover by settlers, and the displacement of Palestinians.
Settler Violence
Despite the relatively sparse settler population in the Mount Hebron area, settler violence in this area is among the most severe in the entire West Bank. A significant portion of this violence targets Palestinian shepherd communities in Masafer Yatta - the southeastern part of Mount Hebron, where Fire Zone 918 is also situated. However, settlements in other areas of Mount Hebron are also generating increasing waves of severe nationalist violence.
Two prominent examples of the accelerated transformation in this area are the isolated and violent settlements of Telem and Adora, located along Highway 35 in the western part of Mount Hebron. Although both were originally established as secular settlements, in recent years, settlers from extremist and violent factions have moved in, rapidly turning thousands of dunams around them into areas plagued by violence.
A checkpoint west of the settlement of Adora
Several kilometers south of these two settlements lies the most isolated settlement in the area of Mount Hebron, the settlement of Negohot. This settlement and its outposts enforce severe violence across thousands of dunams around it. With around 500 settlers living among tens of thousands of Palestinians, this settlement is completely isolated from its surroundings (see below).
A checkpoint west of the settlement of Negohot
Settler and military violence in the area of Mount Hebron has led to the expulsion of 11 Palestinian shepherd communities from their homes over the past year and a half. The largest of these communities was in Zanuta, which had over 200 residents until its expulsion and destruction in October 2023.
The ruins of the Palestinian shepherd community of Attiriyah whose residents were expelled by settlers in October 2023
The Development of the Bypass Road System in the Area of Mount Hebron
Like any other colonial system built on isolated points dominating large areas inhabited by an indigenous population, the question of access routes has been a central concern for the architects of the Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank, seen as critical for the future.
The historical road system in the Hebron Hills developed organically, connecting the main Palestinian villages and then splits into secondary roads. When Israel began establishing settlements in the area in the early 1970s, starting with the settlement of Kiryat Arba and followed by smaller settlements a decade later, both the settlers movement and the army relied on the existing road network. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that Israel completed a ring road system, connecting Highway 351 in the east to
Highway 60 in the west. This ring system serves two complementary functions:
The first, is in order to connect the settlements with one another.
The second, is in order to cut the connection between Yatta and As Samu’, the two largest Palestinian towns south of Hebron, which are home to hundreds of thousands of residents, and the other Palestinian communities in the area of Mount Hebron, as well as a significant portion of their lands.
As depicted on the map, the primary purpose of most checkpoints and roadblocks in the area of Mount Hebron is to isolate the enclosed territory within the ring of roads from the surrounding region.
Beyond the ring road encircling the southern portion of Mount Hebron, there are several longitudinal and transverse routes connecting the area to the Green Line. The most significant of these is Route 35, which connects the center of Mount Hebron with the Green Line.
Another noteworthy road is the segment of Route 60 that connects the ring road system to a Meitar checkpoint in the south.
The case of the access road to the isolated and violent settlement of Negohot differs somewhat from the other roads leading to settlements. This is a historic road that originally connected the village of Beit Awwa to the villages to its east. Currently, the road is blocked in such a way that it is used exclusively by the settlers of Negohot, allowing them to travel both westward into Israel and eastward to access the other settlements in Mount Hebron
A checkpoint on road 3265 east of the settlement of Negohot
Relocating Entry Barriers to Outposts
In several instances, entry barriers to outposts have been deliberately placed in order to block Palestinian access to historical roads. These outposts include Havat Talia, Mitzpe Yair, Avigail, Havat Yehuda, and Adora East. After October 7, 2023, new barriers were placed at specific locations to prevent Palestinians from reaching agricultural areas and remote villages. Palestinians from some of these villages were expelled over the past year and a half.
The entrance barrier to the outpost of Mitzpe Yair east of the settlement of Susya
In conclusion
There is no way and no need to sugarcoat the harsh reality that Israel created in the West Bank: Palestinian freedom of movement is fundamentally at odds with the settlers' demands for personal security. As Palestinian resistance to the Israeli oppressive regime intensifies, it prompts increasingly severe measures to restrict Palestinian movement across expanding areas. These escalating demands for tighter restrictions are driven by the settlers themselves, who are exposed to the risks inherent by this reality.
In this project, we mapped 220 checkpoints and roadblocks placed by the army and the settlers in the Mount Hebron area. Over the years, Israel has invested vast resources in controlling and restricting Palestinian freedom of movement in the West Bank. The simplest and most common method used is the placement of checkpoints and roadblocks. However, it is crucial to note that checkpoints and roadblocks are neither the only nor the primary mechanism through which Israel controls Palestinian movement. The most significant tool remains direct violence carried out by the army and the settlers in order to deter Palestinians from accessing increasingly large areas of the West Bank.