Between Checkpoints

A journalist moves between the Palestinian territories, tracing who moves freely, and who must seek permission

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Over the course of a month reporting between Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and cities across the West Bank, Iñaki Estivaliz found that the defining story was not only political but structural. It was about movement—who boards a bus without inspection, who is required to change vehicles at a checkpoint, who carries a passport that opens gates, and who relies on a permit that can be revoked. From settlement roads to shuttered markets to the interrogation rooms of Ben Gurion Airport, the same question surfaced repeatedly: who moves freely, who waits, and who must seek permission.

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From the moment I landed at Ben Gurion Airport, I felt unsettled. I was struck immediately by the landscape: walls, checkpoints, and settlements built on hilltops. The physical barriers were impossible to ignore. I had read about them, but seeing them in person produced a visceral reaction—an ongoing sense of tension that stayed with me throughout my month there.

I spent my first three weeks between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv covering the hostage exchange alongside Spanish freelance journalist Marcos Méndez, who was reporting live for national and regional television outlets in Spain and Latin America.

My reporting trip was made possible through individual donations from readers who support my work, as well as flight miles and hotel points that Marcos generously shared.

Tel Aviv

In Tel Aviv, I interviewed Ayala Metzger, the stepdaughter of a Hamas hostage who died shortly after October 7. She told me that before the attacks, she felt disconnected from Palestinian realities. She said many Israelis who rely on mainstream media and state institutions have little awareness of the daily impact of the occupation. “We harm them more than they harm us,” she told me. She also questioned whether Israel functions as a full democracy and argued that violence only perpetuates conflict. In her view, her stepfather was not killed by Hamas but by Israeli bombing. For expressing these opinions publicly, she has faced harassment, including threats painted on the exterior of her home.

There are Israelis who openly criticize the government and take significant personal risks in doing so. Their dissent often comes at a social cost.

In Jerusalem, I was struck by how many Palestinians who remain there hold U.S. or European passports, which offer a degree of mobility and protection not available to others.

During our time in Palestinian neighborhoods, we made an effort to support local businesses directly. Many shopkeepers preferred cash payments, citing concerns about taxation structures and economic constraints under Israeli administration.

Jerusalem

Upon arrival in Jerusalem I was confronted by the Green Line — the invisible boundary separating Israel and Palestine. It is not a wall but a street, an ordinary avenue. People cross it daily. But the crossing is not the same for everyone. Some move freely, armed yet at ease. Others lower their heads.

On Nablus Road, Moe Tahan opens Sarwa restaurant each morning without knowing whether a single customer will arrive. Born in 1972, he emigrated to the United States during the first intifada and returned in 2009 to revive his parents’ shuttered travel agency space. As he serves lentil soup and pita bread, he speaks not of revenge but of suffocating taxes, unequal public investment between West and East Jerusalem, and the collapse of tourism after October 7. Above all, he repeats: “All I want is peace.”

Moe holds a U.S. passport. He could live in Los Angeles. Instead, in Jerusalem, he resides on a permit — effectively a foreigner in his own city. “In my land, I have a green card,” he says.

Near Damascus Gate, Imad Muna runs the Educational Bookshop with deliberate steadiness. His brother and nephew were arrested for selling books that soldiers deemed objectionable. He speaks without dramatics. The occupation has shaped his entire life. Each day requires contingency planning — plan A, plan B, plan C. Remaining in Jerusalem, he says, demands both education and resources. He has both. He chooses to stay.

At the Hotel Addar — founded in 1870 and now the last Palestinian-owned hotel in East Jerusalem — Yahia Khalaf practices a quieter form of resistance: continuity. Staffing shortages caused by checkpoints and detentions mean that he and two colleagues do the work of seven. The hotel operates with dignity nonetheless.

Yahia left Jerusalem, returned, left again, studied in England, and earned a master’s degree in Information Technology. It took 27 years for his right to reside in the city of his birth to be recognized. Israel considers him British with residency status. His son, born in Madrid, can visit only as a tourist.

He speaks without rancor. Political leaders come and go, he says. History shifts. Permanence belongs to those who remain.

For several days, Yahia tried to arrange an interview for me with a Palestinian man recently released after 25 years in prison without charge. The third time I asked about it, he told me quietly that the man had “fallen from a fourth floor.”

Ramallah

After spending three weeks with Marcos’s team, I decided to travel into the West Bank using Palestinian public transportation. The bus was filled mostly with women, children, and elderly passengers. Very few adult men were present. For many Palestinians, traveling from Jerusalem to other West Bank cities requires a permit — typically granted only to those over 21, married, employed by an Israeli company, and able to pay annual fees that are prohibitive for most.

Vehicles carry different license plates that determine mobility. Israeli plates allow unrestricted travel. Palestinian plates confine drivers to designated areas within the West Bank. A journey that should take twenty minutes can stretch into hours because of official checkpoints, temporary roadblocks, and mandatory detours. Families living short distances apart are often unable to visit one another.

In Ramallah, the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, I visited the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat before meeting Zahran Jaghab, a Palestinian Christian. He expressed concern that the Christian population in the Holy Land continues to decline. He criticized the politicization of religious identity, recalling that Muslims, Christians, and Arab Jews once coexisted primarily under a shared Palestinian identity before religion became a defining political fault line.

Leaving Ramallah was tense. At a military checkpoint, passengers were required to disembark, change buses, and undergo identity checks. A young soldier examined my passport for several minutes, conferring with colleagues while comparing my face to the photograph. I could not understand what they were saying. For a moment, I worried I would miss the bus back to Jerusalem. Eventually, the passport was returned without explanation, and I ran to the parking lot to board the first bus heading back.

Bethlehem

In Bethlehem, revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, Mike — the name he chose to use — opens his souvenir shop each morning despite the absence of tourists. He explains the movement restrictions matter-of-factly: the permit system, the separation barrier constructed in the early 2000s that surrounds much of the city, and the difficulty of accessing Jerusalem freely.

He does not speak with anger. He speaks in practical terms. His suggestion is simple: a Palestinian airport that would allow visitors to arrive directly, bypassing the layers of restriction that now discourage travel.

Once a major religious tourism hub, Bethlehem’s hotels are largely closed. Taxi drivers and shopkeepers wait outside nearly empty streets. Their persistence reflects economic strain more than aggression.

In the surrounding hills, terraced olive groves stretch across family land. Olive trees line even the sidewalks. Young men guide goats through the streets.

I considered staying the night but found no open accommodations. Rather than ask Mike for help — aware that hospitality might mean imposing on his family — I chose instead to continue on to Hebron.

Hebron

In Bethlehem, I booked the cheapest Airbnb for Hebron and took a typical seven-seat yellow taxi with green license plates. Cramped inside, a man next to me told me in English to put on my seatbelt — not for safety, but to avoid problems at checkpoints. All the land between Palestinian cities is already encroached by armed civilian settlers with the backing of Israeli soldiers.

Upon arriving in Hebron, I witnessed a scene that frightened me. When we reached the center of the city, the taxi driver made everyone get out before the official stop. About twenty Israeli soldiers stood on one side of a roundabout where another twenty Palestinian Authority police were stationed.

Hebron is governed under the Hebron Protocol, agreed in 1997: most of the city (Area H1) is under Palestinian Authority control; a smaller central sector (Area H2) remains under Israeli military control. In practice, whenever Israeli soldiers appear in Area H2, Palestinian security forces are expected to withdraw to their posts in Area H1.

After the soldiers dispersed I went to find my host, who ultimately did not have my apartment available but took me to a hostel where I met very interesting people.

The guests were international activists who had come to serve as human shields against settlers. These young people, from the U.S., Canada, and Italy, were there at the time I arrived, risking their freedom and even their lives to defend the Palestinian people. At the Friend Hostel, located in the old market a few steps from the Ibrahimi Mosque, Aboo Osama worked in exchange for bed and food. He used to own a guesthouse in Jerusalem that has since closed, and came to Hebron for a short job six months earlier. Now he cannot leave because he would need a permit that is effectively impossible to obtain. His family lives twenty minutes away. He cooked an excellent maqdula for everyone.

The Airbnb host who took me to the hostel also gave me a tour of the Hebron market. Adel showed me the metal meshes that cover the market streets to prevent trash — especially used diapers — from being thrown down from occupied buildings, and the padlocks Israeli forces place on many shops, preventing their owners from opening. Hebron feels suffocating, with settlers occupying buildings in the city center and surrounded by settlements.

Google Maps in Israel does not show Palestinian roads. Every time journalists want to travel from one Palestinian city to another, we have to make many calls to confirm the best route and which access is open that day.

Checkpoint to Departure Gate

After four days unsuccessfully attempting to reach Masafer Yatta —  depicted in the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land — I began the journey back to Jerusalem.

I was searching for the Palestinian bus station, but before I could ask anyone for directions, I found myself walking through the hills on the outskirts of Hebron, surrounded by walls and fenced perimeters. From one of the hills, on a clear morning, I could see the sea in the distance. Later I was told it was the coastline near Gaza.

As I descended, hoping to find someone who could direct me to the bus, I encountered an Israeli police patrol. One officer asked, through gestures, where I was headed. I told him I needed a bus to Jerusalem. He motioned toward a nearby checkpoint and indicated that I should inform the soldier there of my destination.

I was not asked for identification. I passed through without inspection.

Beyond the checkpoint was a settlement area. The buildings were new, uniform, and recently constructed. A small bar was open despite the early hour. I stopped briefly before continuing on to locate the bus stop.

When the bus arrived, I attempted to pay in cash. The driver explained that payment required a transit card purchased at the central station, but he allowed me to board.

The return journey from Hebron to Jerusalem was direct. There were no stops, no identity checks, no delays. The contrast with previous crossings was stark.

I arrived at Ben Gurion three and a half hours before my flight.

I knew that the airport had been notorious for decades. For more than 35 years, some Spanish orientalist intellectuals have refused to travel to Israel because of the humiliations they endured when entering or leaving.

– Where have you been?

– Why have you only been in those territories? (They do not say “Palestinian territories.”)

I must have said something that raised suspicion, because they repeated the same question seven times. Four different soldiers repeated the same question—they were all very young, couldn't have been older than 20.

What followed were three hours of interrogations and various humiliations. At one point, I was left half-naked in a cubicle while instructions were relayed through cameras to the man overseeing me, telling him what to make me do next. I was required to show nearly every part of my body to the cameras.

The most terrifying moment came when I had to place my forearm in front of the lens—the one with the watermelon tattoo patterned like a keffiyeh. Despite the degradation, I stayed calm.

They kept asking: What time does your flight leave? That question reassured me. It suggested this was an intimidation protocol, but that I would ultimately be allowed to board.

Five minutes before the gates closed, they released me—just enough time to sprint through the terminal and make my flight.