Deir Sharaf, occupied West Bank – An Israeli military checkpoint dominates the lives of the villagers of Deir Sharaf, who already live in the shadow of an illegal Israeli settlement.
The permanently crewed metal blockade blights the occupied West Bank village’s main road, which connects six northern West Bank cities and is a major gateway into Nablus.
The checkpoint, initially a dirt mound barrier in October 2022, is a chilling reminder of the threat of violence hovering over thousands of Palestinians who are forced to travel through 800 or so West Bank checkpoints and roadblocks every day.
“Nowadays, if you make one wrong move when you pass through the checkpoint, you’ll be shot,” said villager Adam Ali, a 55-year-old father of four who has seen this first-hand.
He witnessed the November 12 shooting of 18-year-old Walid Hussein by soldiers who then stood by as he bled to death.
Hussein was accused of carrying a knife by the military but witnesses tell a different story.
“The boy was unarmed and did nothing,” Adam said. “The Israeli soldiers shot him and watched him die.”
A ‘public execution’
Hussein was from the Ein Beit el-Ma refugee camp in Nablus – where memorials to him adorn walls and hang on street corners.
Multiple witnesses, including Adam and his 15-year-old son Mohammed, said Walid was asked to stop and get out of his car by the soldiers. When he took a step towards them, he was shot several times.
They say he did not immediately succumb to the bullets.
“The ambulance tried to get to him but they blocked it,” said Mohammed. “His blood was everywhere. It was an execution.”
No soldiers were injured.
Local and international media reported witnesses saw no weapon and no intent from Walid to harm the soldiers.
Those in the neighbourhood Hussein once called home question the Israeli narrative of a knife, saying it isn’t the first time the military has used such an excuse for a public “execution”.
“We’re living in hell – the idea of leaving is becoming harder to fight,” Adam said. “Life is so hard – I hope death will be more merciful.”
Villagers describe “a life of terror” dominated by Israeli soldiers and settlers who stream in from the nearby illegal Shavei Shomron settlement, built in 1977 and equipped with air raid sirens, a military perimeter and 24/7 security.
The illegal settlement is at the centre of far-right settler politics in the West Bank, and hosts more than 1,000 settlers, including a politician who attended the inauguration of United States President Donald Trump.
Mayor Shadi Abu Halaweh says there is almost nowhere else in the occupied West Bank like Deir Sharaf, bisected by a checkpoint separating east from west and transforming the lives of the 3,000 villagers overnight.
It was first established around the same time as the rise of the Lions’ Den resistance group in Nablus and the subsequent Israeli crackdown on it.
Armed soldiers patrol all day, stopping cars and conducting searches – often involving intimidation and violence.
Abu Halaweh says two people have been killed and three seriously injured at the checkpoint since it was set up – and violent incidents have increased since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.
Since October 7, 2023, nearly 100 people have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the Nablus governorate, which includes Deir Sharaf, according to United Nations figures.
A long-awaited ceasefire agreement in Gaza took hold last month, but killing continues across the West Bank, Israel looking set to expand its attacks, and its officials saying a military deployment could last until next year.
Fears of ethnic cleansing have been sparked by the expulsion of 50,000 Palestinians from their homes in refugee camps in besieged Jenin and Tulkarem – an operation threatening to engulf the Nablus region next.
‘I feel I could be killed in my own home’
At times of tension, the last place Palestinians want to be is near a checkpoint.
The Israelis say checkpoints are intended to prevent armed resistance activity and monitor suspects.
But Palestinians in the West Bank say they are designed to control their movement and instil fear among motorists and nearby residents – while protecting settlers and providing safe entry for Israeli military vehicles.
Not many homes or businesses remain on the western side of the checkpoint – and those that do are isolated and prone to attacks from settlers.
Abu Halaweh said residents on the western side live in constant fear of settlers, who are “always sabotaging”, stealing, and destroying property.
Israeli human rights monitor B’Tselem says the barrier prevents about 50 families who live in the western part of the village from accessing the rest of it by car.
Basil Wawi, a 40-year-old government employee and father to two-year-old twin girls, described the horror of living on the wrong side of the divide.
“Before [the checkpoint], they would stop cars occasionally. Now, they search you, your phone, and sometimes arrest you just for going home.”
He recounted a settler assault in November 2023 when settlers broke into his home in broad daylight and set fire to it.
The settlers, Wawi added, were protected by the military, who blocked him from returning to his home for three hours – shooting at anyone who tried to help him or oppose the invaders.
“Most people don’t know what it’s like to feel like you could be killed in your own home at any time,” he said.
“I’ve given up on my life but I thank God my children are still alive – they were only two months old when we were attacked.”
After attacking his house, he said, settlers destroyed businesses and threw stones at villagers. Wawi’s family escaped to his uncle’s house nearby while he stayed to defend their home.
“I feel like the settlers could show up at any moment,” he added. “I stay up until five or six in the morning most nights … [it’s] torture.”
Wawi says settlers in cars have tried to hit him three times as he walks on the road west of the checkpoint.
There have been more than 1,800 attacks by settlers in the West Bank since October 2023 – an average of four a day. More than 120,000 firearms have been issued by the Israeli state to the West Bank’s 700,000 settlers since October 7.
Killing the olive trees
Adam’s family has lost part of their lifeblood to Israel: “Back around 2009, the army confiscated our land, where we grew 116 olive trees. The land used to produce 80 to 90 cans of olive oil, but now it’s all been taken.”
He says his father’s health problems were worsened by the stress of the seizure of his land – and led to his death.
Olive trees are intertwined with Palestinian identity and undergird the rural economy. Perhaps that is why they are so often subject to settler attacks or land seizures.
Israel has seized more than one square kilometre (0.4sq miles) from the villages of Deir Sharaf, Burqa and ancient Sebastia – much of it for the expansion of Shavei Shomron.
“The settlers are the ones who rule,” Abu Halaweh said. “Even the army can’t control them any more.”
And he adds that the Israeli government is continually seizing more of Deir Sharaf’s territory, often justifying it as necessary for “security” reasons, or to build infrastructure for settlers, such as roads or settlement expansions.
According to the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, Israel took 236 dunums (about 58 acres) from Deir Sharaf to build the illegal settlement of Shavei Shomron, and 16 dunums (4 acres) for a military base near the settlement.
‘There is no life here anymore’
Abu Halaweh said the imposition of the checkpoint has cost many young people educational opportunities and any chance to escape.
In November, Adam’s 15-year-old son Mohammed recalls seeing from his bedroom window settlers and soldiers shooting residents who were defending the village with stones.
Villagers were fainting because of the tear gas being deployed by soldiers, the fumes from shops set alight and tyres being burned to deter shots from the checkpoint.
Adam refused to leave his shop and his home – which were right in the line of fire. Instead, he and Mohammed gathered stones to throw if someone attempted to get in.
Mohammed said, “It’s our home. If we leave it and they attack it, who will defend it?”
Despite his youth, Mohammed remembers a time – before Israel’s shift to an increasingly hardline, Jewish-supremacist position – when soldiers practiced restraint, shooting rubber bullets rather than lethal metallic ones, the checkpoint didn’t exist and settlers even came into his dad’s shop to pick up groceries.
He says people from outside Palestine are often unaware of the rate of this change – and the surprising level of coexistence which is but a distant memory now.
“Now the soldiers and the settlers see Palestinians as animals. For them, killing is easy,” he said. “I don’t want to leave Deir Sharaf forever but there is no life for me here any more.”
“And it’s only going to get worse.”
Some of the names in this article have been changed for the individual’s safety.
The post ‘Public execution’: The Israeli checkpoint terrorising a Palestinian town appeared first on Al Jazeera.
