World Bank report – Checkpoints & Barriers
11 March 2010
An important dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and one that has been extensively documented, concerns Israel's control over the movement of Palestinian people, goods, and resources. Since 1967, control over Palestinian movement has relaxed and tightened, following in part the ebb and flow of the conflict.
Over time, however, the apparatus of control itself has gradually become more sophisticated and effective in its ability to interfere in and affect every aspect of Palestinian life, including job opportunities, work, and earnings.
Extensive and multilayered, the apparatus of control includes a permit system, physical obstacles known as closures, restricted roads, prohibitions on entering large areas of land in the West Bank, and most notably the Separation Barrier. It has turned the West Bank into a fragmented set of social and economic islands or enclaves cut off from one another. It has surrounded Gaza with a perimeter fence with heavily controlled crossings.
