As Israelis awoke early last Friday morning to discover that their country had started a war with Iran, Palestinians in the West Bank found that the Israeli army had placed them under lockdown.

Closures and checkpoints have been the norm in the occupied territory for decades, becoming even more numerous and restrictive in the wake of October 7. But after striking Iran, the army reduced Palestinians’ movement to a near-total standstill — sealing off towns and cities with iron gates, closing checkpoints between the West Bank and Jerusalem, and shutting down the Allenby border crossing with Jordan.

Israel justified the lockdown by claiming it needed to divert troops to other fronts. Yet the remobilization of reservists — many of them settlers — has actually increased the number of soldiers in the territory. The UN now reports that many of the closures have been lifted, but with several checkpoints closed and new gates and roadblocks erected, Palestinian mobility remains highly curtailed.

In East Jerusalem, too, rights groups have reported an escalation in restrictions and repression against Palestinians, including a total ban on worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“Since the launch of Israel’s military operation in Iran, the authorities have implemented sweeping, heavy-handed measures reminiscent of the aggressive policing that followed October 7,” the Israeli NGOs Ir Amim and Bimkom said in a statement earlier this week. “These actions have severely disrupted daily life, curtailed freedom of worship, and violated the fundamental rights of Palestinian residents in the city.”

The ease with which Israel was able to cut off virtually all movement in and out of Palestinian towns and cities, thanks to an apparatus of control that includes nearly 900 checkpoints and gates, highlights the extent of the occupation’s footprint in the West Bank — and points to Israel’s broader objective for the territory with the world’s attention focused elsewhere.

“Everything is an opportunity for Israel,” Honaida Ghanim, director of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (commonly known by the Arabic acronym “Madar”), told +972 Magazine. “This government will seize any moment to further advance its ideological agenda, especially in the West Bank.”

In fact, she argues, what we’re seeing now is further proof of annexation in all but name. “It’s already happening on the ground; all the infrastructure points to it,” Ghanim said. “The idea is to fragment the population, squeezing people into smaller pockets to make them easier to control.

“The only thing missing is the official declaration. And when that comes, it will merely formalize what’s already there.”

‘Every village has a gate — we’re stuck’

Ahmad Abu Kamleh and his colleague Naeem Al-Shobaki were on their way to deliver goods to a supermarket near Ni’lin, a village west of Ramallah, when the lockdown came into effect. Their minibus soon ran out of diesel while trying to bypass the new roadblocks, at which point they became stranded. 

After two nights stuck outside Ni’lin, sleeping in their minibus, they decided to ditch the vehicle and try to make their way home to Burin, near Nablus, by other means. First they took a taxi some of the way, before hitching a ride in three different private cars, which took them through at least eight villages. Amid a maze of roadblocks and forced detours, what should have been a 40-minute drive turned into a six-hour ordeal. 

“I feel dead inside; only my body is alive,” Abu Kamleh told +972 after his nightmare journey. “The roads were almost empty, but there were soldiers everywhere. You feel scared to move. It’s not safe.”

Meanwhile in Sinjil, a village in the northern West Bank, residents found themselves virtually cut off from the nearby cities of Ramallah and Nablus.

Mahfouz Fawlha, a dentist from the village, has a clinic in Ramallah, which he is now struggling to reach. “The clinic is only 15 minutes away, but now the journey could take more than two hours,” he explained. 

Since October 7, the Israeli army has started erecting a barbed-wire fence to sever Sinjil from the main road and the residents’ rural lands. “Every village now has a gate,” Fawlha said. “We’re stuck.”

In Ramallah, Shadi and Diala (who preferred not to give their family name) had planned to baptize their daughter this weekend. But road closures prevented the Maronite priest from reaching the city from Jerusalem, while many family members were also unable to attend. Instead, they proceeded with a Latin priest based in Ramallah, who was available at the last minute. 

As the ceremony ended, the sound of missiles echoed nearby. “We decided to move forward despite everything,” Shadi said. “What can we do? We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Erasing the Palestinian question

Despite the surrounding lockdown, life in Ramallah over the weekend carried on largely as normal: shops opened, traffic flowed, and cafés gradually filled up. Some people rushed to buy essentials, forming lines at gas stations, but the mood remained subdued.

The Palestinian Authority made no immediate comment on the Israel-Iran escalation, even as Arab governments issued condemnations. Later, it urged calm and affirmed that the stockpile of basic supplies would be enough to meet residents’ needs for at least six months.

Hours after Israel’s initial attack on Iran, the Palestinian Civil Defense issued a statement asking people not to go on rooftops to watch flying objects — an instruction many ignored as social media quickly filled with videos of smoke trails and explosions in the sky. It also reminded residents that shrapnel could cause serious or even fatal injuries hundreds of meters from the blast, and urged them not to approach or touch any debris.

By Monday, a Civil Defense spokesperson reported that at least 80 pieces of shrapnel from intercepted missiles had fallen on Palestinian communities across the West Bank. Shrapnel falling on the city of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, on Sunday ignited a rooftop fire.

Whereas Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank have access to bomb shelters, Palestinians are totally exposed to falling missile fragments. 

It is a similar story in East Jerusalem where, due to planning and building restrictions, there are only 60 public shelters for almost 400,000 Palestinians. By comparison, West Jerusalem has hundreds of public shelters for its predominantly Jewish population, and reinforced safe rooms are also common inside apartments.

Without proper protection, families live in constant fear during times of heightened conflict, uncertain where to take shelter if attacks escalate. And while the new war with Iran has left Palestinians anxious about what’s to come, many in the West Bank feel like they’ve already been living in a constant state of war for two years — or much longer.

For Ghanim of Madar, what happens next in the West Bank depends partly on how Israel comes out of its offensive in Iran. “If it emerges stronger, it will be even more empowered to push ahead,” she explained. 

“This isn’t about managing the conflict anymore; it’s about ending it — on Israel’s terms — by erasing the Palestinian question entirely.”