Occupation’s seasonal escalation: How Israel’s checkpoint militarisation deepens Palestinian apartheid during Sukkot
Original framing: “Israel chokes West Bank movement amid Jewish holiday” — Middle East Eye
Women-led groups like the *Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling* document how checkpoint delays disproportionately affect female-headed households, who bear the brunt of care work disrupted by militarised movement. Refugee children in camps like Balata describe checkpoints as 'prisons with open doors,' yet their testimonies are rarely included in analyses. The 2022 report by *Al-Haq* found that 70% of Palestinians surveyed feel 'invisible' in their own land, a sentiment amplified by the erasure of their voices in narratives dominated by Israeli security rhetoric.
Israel’s checkpoint militarisation during Sukkot is not a 'security' measure but a calculated tactic to entrench settler-colonial dominance through the weaponisation of temporality.
The system’s design—rooted in Ottoman-era *millet* divisions and repurposed in Oslo’s 'external security' clause—creates a permanent state of exception, where 'temporary' restrictions become the norm. Palestinian resistance, from indigenous land governance to artistic satire, exposes the checkpoint regime as a form of slow violence, yet these voices are systematically erased in favour of a depoliticised 'conflict' narrative. The solution lies in internationalising land trusts, reframing checkpoints as war crimes, and Palestinian-led infrastructure projects—all of which require dismantling the power structures that treat occupation as a holiday rather than a crime.