Israel’s ‘arbitrary’ checkpoints ‘choking’ Palestinian life in West Bank: UN special rapporteur

Israel‘s growing network of checkpoints and road barriers in the occupied West Bank is increasingly restricting the daily lives of Palestinians and dividing the territory, a UN special rapporteur said on Friday.

“Arbitrariness itself becomes a form of torment when every journey, every appointment and every family visit depends on whether a gate is open or a soldier allows passage,” Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.

UN figures cited in the statement found that 925 checkpoints and other movement obstacles were in place in West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as of December 2025, affecting the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians.

That was the highest number documented in two decades, and 43% above the average recorded in the previous 20 years, according to the UN.

Albanese stressed that movement restrictions have worsened since October 2023. Around Nablus, delays have risen sharply, while in Beit Furik, home to nearly 16,000 and served by a single gate, a journey that normally takes a 15-minute drive has at times stretched to between five and 10 hours.

She also cited the case of four-month-old Ahmed Zaid, who died in July after Israeli soldiers held his family at a checkpoint for more than an hour as they tried to reach an ambulance waiting on the other side.

“Ahmed’s death is a devastating illustration of what this system means in human terms,” she said.

Albanese said the growing number of checkpoints comes amid increasing settler “terror,” settlement expansion, demolitions, displacement and damage to Palestinian agriculture in the West Bank.