Israeli Military Checkpoints Inflict Severe Economic Toll on West Bank Businesses

An expanding network of Israeli military checkpoints, roadblocks, and security gates is severely suffocating commercial activity across the occupied West Bank. The intensifying matrix of travel restrictions has fragmented Palestinian communities, inflated transit costs, and pushed numerous local enterprises to the brink of collapse.

In the village of Rujeib, located southeast of Nablus, the operational fallout is clearly visible at the Al-Kamel Dairy Factory. Founded in 2022, the manufacturer has been forced to leave two of its primary delivery vehicles permanently idle in its yard, crippled by a steep decline in consumer demand and acute transportation bottlenecks.

The dairy producer has suffered a 30 to 40 percent plunge in overall sales, leading to the dismissal of at least a dozen employees. Persistent transit disruptions have compelled the company to forfeit a substantial portion of its customer base located outside the municipal boundaries of Nablus, drastically shrinking its commercial footprint.

Perishable goods face the most severe risks under these movement restrictions. Because dairy products require continuous refrigeration and rapid distribution, extended delays have proven catastrophic for Al-Kamel, resulting in the spoilage and loss of roughly 10 tonnes of raw milk at military barriers.

Company representative Dweikat noted that delivery trucks routinely languish for two to three hours simply attempting to exit Nablus, facing even longer bottlenecks at peripheral checkpoints. At the Awarta crossing, situated merely two kilometers from the production facility, transport vehicles have been held up for as long as four hours.

These extreme hold-ups often make product deliveries untenable. According to Dweikat, when operations stretch into the middle of the day, managers are frequently forced to cancel transit routes altogether, prioritizing the physical safety of drivers and distribution staff amid a volatile security landscape.

The operational crisis facing local businesses mirrors the broader physical encirclement of the territory. Figures compiled by the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission indicate that approximately 925 checkpoints and military gates are currently scattered across the West Bank, with 147 located in the Nablus governorate alone.

The proliferation of these physical barriers has accelerated sharply since October 2023, coinciding with the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Established to sustain the occupation and safeguard Israeli settlements—which are deemed illegal under international legal frameworks—the roadblocks have accompanied a surge in settler violence against Palestinian towns and villages.

Overall vehicular and freight transit across the occupied territory has contracted by more than 50 percent since late 2023. This severe reduction in mobility has severed supply chains, isolated municipal economies, and added immense logistical friction to the movement of essential commodities.

At the same time, the West Bank is grappling with widespread economic contraction and soaring unemployment. The suspension of work permits for Palestinian laborers previously employed in Israel, combined with broad-based salary reductions, has significantly diminished consumer purchasing power. Consequently, manufacturers cannot offset rising logistics expenses by raising shelf prices without further depressing sales.

A comprehensive study published in March 2025 by the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) outlines the systemic scale of these closures. After tracking traffic at 14 major military installations, researchers recorded individual delays ranging between 15 and 50 minutes per crossing.

The MAS research determined that trips extending beyond the Nablus governorate experience an average delay of 42 minutes, representing a 77.9 percent surge in normal travel durations. In total, an estimated 191,146 working hours are wasted every single day as commuters and commercial drivers sit trapped in checkpoint queues.

This lost labor time translates into a direct financial loss of approximately 2.8 million shekels ($764,600) per day for the Palestinian economy. Over the course of a single month, the cumulative economic deficit exceeds 62.2 million shekels ($16.8 million).

Furthermore, the necessity of navigating lengthy detours to bypass closed military gates imposes heavy secondary expenses on commercial drivers. MAS calculated that the extra mileage results in an estimated daily expenditure of 71,000 shekels ($19,203) in wasted fuel alone.

The cumulative weight of these restrictions has cast a heavy pall over urban commerce. In Nablus, where nearly every entry point is governed by permanent or semi-permanent checkpoints, local traders such as spice merchant Mansour Aliwi report that the once-vibrant commercial hub has deteriorated into a virtual ghost town as the compounding closures deepen with each passing month.