Restrictions on freedom of movement

Freedom of movement is a fundamental right and an essential component of individual liberty in its most basic sense. Restrictions on movement directly impact other human rights as they impede access to healthcare, education, employment, agricultural land, and more. Palestinians’ right to travel freely within and out of the West Bank has been subject to varying degrees of limitations since the onset of the occupation. Since the October 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing war, restrictions on freedom of movement have intensified in multiple ways, causing widespread and immediate harm to most of the population. The military operation in the northern West Bank made matters worse in the second year of the war.

Restrictions on movement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

The military imposed extensive movement restrictions on Palestinians throughout the West Bank as soon as the war broke out, including in communities in the Jordan Valley and the Seam Zone (10% of the West Bank land that is trapped between the Green Line and the Separation Barrier and that has been effectively annexed by Israel). This policy, which remains in force and has intensified, bars Palestinian travel on thoroughfares almost completely and forces travel through numerous checkpoints, involving long wait times due to congestion. Many Palestinian communities and villages were effectively encircled by gates and barriers, some permanent some temporary, while access roads to towns and villages were blocked.

A UN assessment conducted in May 2025 found 849 obstructions across the West Bank, which permanently or intermittently deny, limit, and monitor the movement of 3.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the H2 area of Hebron. These obstructions include 24/7 staffed checkpoints, partially staffed checkpoints, gates, concrete blocks, and even improvised barriers such as dirt mounds and rocks. While hundreds of these barriers are fixed and impassable, it was found that 172 gates, supposedly intended to enable traffic along the roads, are usually locked and often do not allow passage.​

As of May 2025, about 150 of the existing barriers were installed after the war began, 36 of them between December 2024 and February 2025. They are designed to segregate West Bank roads shared by Israelis and Palestinians. Additionally, activists with Combatants for Peace reported that more gates were installed in the Bethlehem area in July 2025, causing alarm among Palestinian residents, who fear a future of curfews and threats to their safety. These gates are also sometimes closed without prior warning.

These blockages create bottlenecks, forcing thousands of vehicles to use side roads and checkpoints and resulting in massive traffic jams, with hours-long waiting times that impact everyone, including emergency medical and fire services.

The closures and movement restrictions constitute an egregious violation of the right to freedom of movement, with devastating consequences for daily life. It impedes Palestinians’ access to employment, education, medical care, family and social life, and more. Obstructions limit access to agricultural land, causing grave economic harm to families and communities that subsist on farming, and in some cases even deny access to basic necessities such as drinking water.

In February 2025, ACRI, PHRI, Yesh Din, Bimkom, and HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice demanding that the military and the head of the Civil Administration regularly publish all orders restricting Palestinian movement in the territory, so that residents may know which restrictions are in force, where, and when. The military objected on security grounds, and the case is pending.

Restricted access to agricultural land and the closure of the Seam Zone in the West Bank

Many farmers across the West Bank are not permitted to access or cultivate their land, whether permanently or periodically. Farmers who are required to coordinate access with the Israeli Civil Administration are often denied permission or given extremely limited access, undermining their livelihoods, property rights, and long-standing traditions such as the olive harvest, which holds major significance for local communities.

Since the outbreak of the war, Israel has barred some 20,000 Palestinian farmers who own land trapped in the Seam Zone, i.e., West Bank enclaves created by the construction of the Separation Barrier, from accessing and cultivating their fields. These individuals legally held permits to enter the Seam Zone before the war. In June 2024, Israel introduced a nominal plan to open just a few of the many agricultural gates installed in the barrier to allow entry for farmers whose crops in the Seam Zone require daily care. With only 919 valid agricultural permits as of January 2025, less than 5% of all farmers needing access to their land were covered. The vast majority grow olive trees, and their land makes up about 95% of the Seam Zone’s agricultural area. Israel has denied these farmers access to tend to and harvest olives for two consecutive years. In January 2025, the state announced that the access ban would become permanent, except for during the harvest season. In May 2024, affected farmers and HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice over this issue. The case is pending.​

Notably, more than 5,000 Palestinians who own businesses or work in the Seam Zone and have entry permits have also been denied access since the war began. However, thanks to a similar petition, these permits have gradually been renewed since May 2024, subject to the submission of an application.

Expansion of the Seam Zone and access restrictions

Rather than complying with the 2004 International Court of Justice ruling calling to dismantle sections of the Separation Barrier built inside the West Bank and abolish the permit regime, the military continues to extend these restrictions to additional communities.

In early September 2025, the GOC Central Command signed a military order declaring approximately 20,000 dunams (about 4,942 acres, 20 square kilometers) of West Bank land near the settlement of Giv’at Ze’ev, an area trapped between the Separation Barrier and the Green Line, a closed military zone. Palestinians who are not residents cannot enter or be present in the area. The order applies to three Palestinian villages: Beit Iksa, a-Nabi Samwil, and al-Khalayleh. Residents of these communities previously moved in and out of the area based on lists provided to soldiers at Separation Barrier checkpoints. Now, following this closure order, these residents are subject to a strict permit system requiring each individual to apply for a personal permit simply to remain in their own home. Over the past month, HaMoked received dozens of reports from Beit Iksa residents whose permit requests were denied on security grounds, threatening their ability to continue living in their homes.

Travel bans: Palestinians entering Israel from the West Bank, foreign nationals entering the West Bank

Immediately following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Israel imposed a ban on the entry of 115,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank who held permits to work in Israel. While the permits were never formally revoked, in practice, with the exception of 8,000 essential workers, Palestinian workers are still barred from entering Israel. The economic repercussions for workers and their families, and for the West Bank economy overall, are dire. Many families are now unable to meet basic needs such as paying for food and school fees. Faced with these hardships, many workers exercised their right to withdraw their accrued pension funds from Israel, but doing so also meant forfeiting their work permits.​

According to Gisha’s data, 48,000 work permits allowing Palestinians to work in settlements in the West Bank were also suspended at the onset of the war. However, 32,000 were renewed in 2024, meaning there is currently no blanket impediment to employing Palestinians. Israel’s security establishment considers the financial distress in the West Bank to be a growing national security threat and supports gradually allowing Palestinian workers back into Israel. Nonetheless, despite an increase in the number of workers entering without permits and Israel’s ongoing need for their labor, government policy has not changed.

As reported by Combatants for Peace, the blanket ban also prevents Palestinian employees of civil society organizations from entering, undermining their ability to engage in activities and participate in meetings between Israelis and Palestinians, further deepening the sense of separation, fear, and hostility.

Israel also imposes severe restrictions on the entry of foreign nationals, individuals without Israeli or West Bank residency status, into the West Bank. Before the war, Israel introduced, as a pilot, a new procedure that significantly limits entry and residency in the West Bank for foreign nationals, including foreign spouses and other family members. In October 2024, the state announced that the procedure would become permanent. Despite a petition filed by HaMoked on behalf of several Palestinian families, the HCJ upheld the procedure in September 2025. The government stated that staff work is underway to potentially revise the policy.