Day 5:
TODAY we had our first experience at a checkpoint on our way to Bethlehem.
The checkpoints are found along the 25ft separation wall raised in 2002 following the second Intifada. This concrete cage cuts Palestinians off from their agricultural land necessary for their survival and prevents people from travelling outside of the walls even to the city.
A single gate opens at the whims of the occupying army.

The Bethlehem district is home to more than 180,000 Palestinians, 70 per cent Muslims and 30 per cent Christian and they are concentrated mostly in the three towns; Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour. The wall surrounding the Bethlehem district is a 15-kilometer shackle which also serves to isolate and annex the religious areas. Around Rachel’s Tomb and the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, hundreds are isolated between two walls, further strengthening Israeli control of historic, religious, and deeply significant places and strangling the city economically.
According to the Israeli authorities the “fence” is a “defensive measure, designed to block the passage of terrorists, weapons and explosives into the State of Israel….”
Most of the wall does not run along the Green Line that separates Israel from the West Bank.
Close to 90 per cent of the route of the wall is on Palestinian land inside the West Bank, encircling Palestinian towns and villages and cutting off communities and families from each other, separating farmers from their land and Palestinians from their places of work and education and health care facilities and other essential services.
The construction of the wall inside the Occupied Territories also violates Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.
Palestinians living in the West Bank often come to the city for work purposes. For this they need permits which can be given from three months to six months but can take up to three months to be issued. Without these permits they will not be allowed to travel out of the Palestinians territories.
At the checkpoint we had our passports ready and followed the local Palestinians through to the other end. It’s the first time I have come across the separation wall. The monstrous 20ft grey walls do nothing but fear in you. The feeling of occupation hits you straight away as we watch the Palestinians looking fed up and tired queue to get through.
I was a bit nervous and so were the other members of our team, but in fact our access was pretty simple, we showed our British passports and no questions where asked.
But some of the Palestinians had body checks and we saw them either taking their belts off or putting them on as and when they entered or left.
On the other side of wall we entered the West Bank where we were met by Toine Van Teeffelen, a Dutch man who is married to a Palestinian Christian and has been living in Palestine for 10 years. He is also the director of development at the Arab Educational Institute based in Bethlehem. Their mission is to foster educational opportunities for Palestinians and in particularly the youth to share and communicate to the wider society about the reality of daily life in Palestine, which includes human right issues as well as the rich diversity of cultural and religious identities.
He told us that we had entered though what was once the main busiest road to Jerusalem. Now the road, blocked by the wall, is completely desolate, apart from a few taxi drivers waiting at the other side of the gate desperately looking for passengers.
The wall on the other side is also filled with graffiti artwork, mainly voicing injustice and hope for the future. One peice of graffitti read: ‘Fear builds walls….hope builds bridges.’ As this was the Building Vridges group, this statement stood out the most.
Toine explained how the checkpoint worked by describing the experience of his own wife who had gone to the checkpoint with his eight-year-old daughter who wanted to see Jerusalem.
He said: “After waiting for several hours, the security told her she must strip during a body search. This was in public. There was no concern for her dignity and was just complete violation of a woman’s right and honour and all this ion fromt og my young daughter.”
He told us how Palestinian workers with permits often had to join the queue at 4am, some even at 3am and they can be found sleeping until they are allowed to go through. Sometimes many aren’t even let through despite having passes as we were told the authorities have a certain quota of people they want to let into the city, yet another sign of trying to control movement of the Palestinian people.

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