Yael Agmon Nacht

This father’s story is one glimpse of the daily humiliation and violence Palestinians endure under occupation. At every checkpoint and iron gate, people are forced to stop, wait, plead and prove their right to pass through their own land, even when a child needs urgent medical care. They can be kept waiting for hours and hours without explanation, never knowing when, or whether, they will be allowed through.

At least 925 checkpoints, iron gates, roadblocks and earth mounds divide the occupied West Bank, according to the latest UN data. The Israeli army can close gates without warning, sealing entire towns and villages and trapping thousands of people at once. This is not an occasional disruption. It is daily Palestinian reality. Palestinians are left with no guaranteed route to a hospital, school, workplace or neighbouring community.

This is how the occupation oppresses and collectively punishes Palestinians. Every journey becomes an exercise in submission: stand in line, show your documents, answer questions and wait for a soldier to decide whether you may continue. These barriers control Palestinian time, movement and survival, turning minutes into hours of humiliation and an ordinary emergency into a struggle between life and death.

No parent should have to beg for permission to save their child. No people should be caged, humiliated and collectively punished in their own land. The occupation and apartheid must end.