Ramallah after four o'clock... Have the military checkpoints turned into traffic lights to serve the settlers?

Restrictions escalate with peak hours, and roads are opened and closed by military orders, while hundreds of Palestinian vehicles pile up at the entrances to the city. Who decides to close it, and who benefits?

Ramallah - Ofoq News - Special Investigation - At four in the afternoon, the Israeli army closes the “Beit El” checkpoint, known as “DCO,” to the movement of Palestinian vehicles in both directions.

As thousands of citizens begin to leave Ramallah and Al-Bireh towards their homes, the northern checkpoints and roads surrounding the city turn into traffic choke points, where cars gather for hours, in a scene that has become remarkably repeated in recent weeks.

The issue is not just a security checkpoint at which a driver stops for inspection, but rather a recurring pattern of restrictions that coincide with daily movement hours on the roads used by Palestinians and Israeli settlers.

This is a pattern that raises a serious question: Do the Israeli authorities use checkpoints to regulate the movement of Palestinians in accordance with actual security considerations, or to reduce their presence on common roads during settlers’ commute hours?

During two field trips to Ramallah in the past week, Ofoq News observed a clear tightening of vehicle movement at a number of checkpoints, accompanied by slow procedures that do not clearly demonstrate their security necessity.

Reports published since September confirm that the phenomenon is not an isolated incident, but rather part of a series of repeated closures and restrictions on the city’s entrances.

Four gates control the city's movement

The main checkpoints surrounding Ramallah and Al-Bireh are distributed along strategic paths linking the governorate to the north, east, and south of the West Bank.

To the south, Palestinian movement passes through the Qalandiya area, the barrier known as the “Jaba’ checkpoint,” and the entrances to northern Jerusalem, where Palestinian vehicle movement overlaps with the roads leading to the settlements in eastern Jerusalem and Israeli population centers inside the wall.

As for the north, the “Beit El” checkpoint (DCO) and the Ein Sinya checkpoint, which is connected to the road leading to Jalazoun and Oyoun al-Haramiyya, stand out, from which the Yabroud checkpoint heading east to Yabroud and Taybah and the Atara checkpoint, which connects Birzeit to the northern road, all the way to the areas northwest of Ramallah, emerge.

Each of these barriers represents a vital outlet for thousands of vehicles. When one of them is closed, traffic does not disappear, but rather moves to other ports, so the crisis doubles and the queues expand.

The danger of this system becomes apparent when one port is closed while measures are tightened at another port. Access to or departure from Ramallah becomes conditional on a series of changing military decisions.

DCO checkpoint...at four o'clock, a military decision

The information collected by Ofoq News from its correspondents, and from Palestinian civil and military liaison parties, in addition to repeated field experiments by the network’s correspondents, confirms that the DCO checkpoint currently operates from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, and then is closed to Palestinians in both directions.

This timing is of particular importance because the checkpoint was open around the clock before the October 2023 war, according to documentation by the Israeli “B’Tselem” organization, before it was closed and partially reopened in 2026.

That is, the current crossing hours are not the result of the road's limitations or capacity, but rather the result of a decision controlled by the occupation authorities.

According to field information, this road witnessed settlers intercepting Palestinian vehicles and assaulting them several times, especially at night. Instead of imposing order on the aggressors, the occupation authorities closed it at four o’clock to the victims.

Five minutes for one car... How is congestion created?

At some of the checkpoints monitored by Ofoq News, the passage process does not take place in a quick and continuous manner, but rather within a series of sequential procedures.

The driver drives up in his vehicle, stops, turns off the engine, then is asked to get out and go to one of the soldiers to present his ID, before returning to the vehicle and proceeding to another point to photograph him or complete the verification of his data, then retrieve his ID and return again to the car, start it, and set off.

This process may take about five minutes per car, depending on the conditions and procedures imposed. To understand the traffic impact, one inspection lane operating at a rate of five minutes per vehicle cannot theoretically pass more than 12-15 vehicles per hour.

This is an illustrative calculation, and not an actual count of the number of vehicles that passed a specific checkpoint, because the number of inspection lanes and the method of their operation differ from one place to another, but the calculation reveals how seemingly simple individual measures can lead to the detention of hundreds of vehicles, even without issuing an official decision to close the road. Here the difference between the necessary security inspection and slowing down traffic in a way that practically disrupts the road becomes apparent.

September...the facts are repeated

On September 13, 2026, the official Wafa Agency documented the tightening of military measures at the Ain Sinia and Atara checkpoints in the evening, amid traffic jams and citizens waiting inside their vehicles.

On September 20, multiple entrances to the north of Ramallah were closed, including Atara and Ein Sina, and roads leading to Nabi Saleh, Aboud, Rawabi, and Deir Nizam, following a shooting incident near the Halamish settlement.

Then, on September 24, the region witnessed widespread restrictions on Atara, Ein Sina, and the Yabrud-Silwad road, in addition to Jaba and Qalandia.

On September 27, the closures were renewed at a number of entrances, while Wafa reported on September 29 that hundreds of families remained stranded for hours at the Atara checkpoint, coinciding with the closure of Ain Sinya.

Some closures during this period coincided with specific security incidents, and other closures occurred during Jewish holidays, including the period of Sukkot, during which announced restrictions extended between September 27 and October 3.

But these facts alone do not explain why the pattern of repeated restrictions continues or the selection of specific hours to disrupt traffic, especially when there is no declared security incident related to each measure.

Do settlers' working hours control the checkpoints?

The checkpoints and bypass roads are located within a network that also serves illegal Israeli settlements and modern settlement outposts surrounding Ramallah, from which settlers usually move to Jerusalem, areas inside Israel, and work, education, and shopping centers, as they are settlements or small outposts that lack public services and whose goal is only to control lands in Area C surrounding Ramallah.

There are no recent statistics available that accurately detail the workplaces of all settlers in the small settlements surrounding Ramallah, and therefore it cannot be certain that the majority of them work inside Israel, or that these settlements do not have economic activity.

However, the daily movement between the place of residence and the place of work is a widespread phenomenon in the Israeli economy, and data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that about half of the workers in some Israeli regions work outside their area of ​​residence, with great variation according to the region.

The typical Israeli work week is 42 hours, while schools usually start around eight in the morning and end earlier than five, with working hours varying according to the stage and institution.

Therefore, the morning and evening hours represent potential times of high work-related vehicle traffic, although not uniform times for all settlers.

It has been proven that the emphasis on Palestinian vehicles is concentrated in the same periods in which settler movement increases on shared roads, and this provides an important indication that there is a traffic function for the checkpoints, beyond security inspection.

Who makes the military decision?

The military checkpoints surrounding Ramallah do not belong to an officer standing there independently of the chain of command.

According to the published organizational structure of the Israeli army, the West Bank is subject to the “Central Region Command”, to which the “West Bank Division” is affiliated, including the regional “Benjamin” Brigade responsible for the Ramallah sector and its surroundings.

This leadership assumes military responsibility for security and public order (according to their description), while the Israeli “civil administration” and coordination and liaison offices operate within the military administration system, with broad changes in the distribution of civilian powers in recent years.

In August 2026, the Israeli army announced the approval of the appointment of General David “Dado” Bar as the new commander of the Central Region, succeeding General Avi Ballut. However, the date of his actual assumption of the position was not published.

As for the “Civil Administration,” it was headed by Officer Hisham Ibrahim, according to army data published during the year 2026.

At the political level, Bezalel Smotrich enjoys broad powers related to civil affairs in the West Bank within the Ministry of the Army, while the Israeli police fall within the responsibilities of the Ministry of National Security, which is headed by Itamar Ben Gvir.

However, direct responsibility for issuing an order to close a checkpoint or tighten inspections of it must be sought within the relevant military chain of command, and it cannot be automatically attributed to the two ministers, despite their constant statements and declared positions to restrict the Palestinians, regardless of security reasons or no reasons.

925 obstacles to movement... Ramallah's problem is not alone

In April 2026, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced the documentation of 925 movement obstacles in the West Bank until the end of 2025, affecting the movement of about 3.4 million Palestinians.

These obstacles represent an increase of 43% compared to the annual average over the previous twenty years. These include permanent and partial barriers, iron gates, earth mounds, and cement cubes.

The United Nations documented about two thousand incidents of movement restriction during the year 2025, with an average of approximately 38 incidents per week.

These numbers reveal that the restrictions are not exceptional temporary arrangements, but rather a vast network that continuously controls access to employment centers, education, and health services.

The actions have direct economic consequences; فالتأخر عن العمل، وتعطل نقل البضائع، واضطرار السكان إلى قطع طرق بديلة، كلها تكاليف يتحملها المجتمع الفلسطيني دون أن يكون طرفاً في اتخاذ القرارات المسببة لها.

International Court of Justice: Security does not justify discrimination

في رأيها الاستشاري الصادر في 19 تموز 2024، خلصت محكمة العدل الدولية إلى أن القيود الإسرائيلية على حركة الفلسطينيين في الأرض المحتلة تشكل تمييزاً محظوراً بموجب القانون الدولي.

Most relevant to the case, the Court made clear, in paragraph 205, that the protection of settlers and settlements, whose existence is in violation of international law, cannot be relied upon to justify measures that treat Palestinians in a discriminatory manner.

It also considered that the restrictions imposed on Palestinians simply because of their Palestinian identity are disproportionate and cannot be justified by security.

This does not negate the right to take specific security measures necessary to protect lives, but it imposes a clear legal test: Is the measure necessary? Is it proportional? Is it applied without discrimination?

If disrupting the movement of hundreds of Palestinian vehicles effectively provides a smoother route for settlers, without a specific and proven security necessity, the measure raises suspicions of discrimination that are prohibited under the standards set by the court.

Who protects the road...and who controls the right to use it?

What is happening at the entrances to Ramallah cannot be reduced to traffic congestion. The issue is who decides to use the road, who is allowed to pass, who is forced to wait, and on what basis.

The field information collected by Ofek News, coupled with repeated documentation of the September closures, establishes the conclusion that repeated restrictions are imposed at hours when there is a large movement of the Palestinian population, and this coincides with their connection to the movement of settlers on the same roads?

The occupation may be able to provide a security justification for some closures, but it is unable to explain the necessity, proportionality, and discriminatory effects of the repeated restrictions.

If the barrier does not have a security function, it can be examined. It is a barrier used to impose a permanent movement advantage for one party at the expense of another. It turns from a security means into a tool of racial discrimination.

In Ramallah, where an entire road can be closed at 4 p.m. by military decision, the most important question becomes: Does security necessity control the movement of Palestinians, or do settlement priorities control Palestinians’ time and their right to use their roads?