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Life for transport workers on the West Bank is becoming impossible, says ITF
7 June 2006
“The use of military checkpoints on roads in the West Bank is making ordinary economic life impossible,” Stuart Howard, ITF Assistant General Secretary told delegates at the congress of the Palestinian Transport Workers’ Union held on 23-24 May in Ramallah. The congress brought together over 60 union representatives from 11 districts in the West Bank.
According to Howard: “It is difficult to understand until you witness it, how difficult it has become to make the most simple journey. Security is of course vital, and no one doubts that security is a very serious problem. Yet it seems that, in the name of security, a system is being operated that comes close to economic sabotage. Drivers are bearing the brunt of a security system that makes their daily working lives subject to arbitrary decisions, penalties and humiliations. They can be stopped from making a journey, made to wait hours during which time, for example, any load of fresh produce can simply rot in the sun”.
The single largest barrier against movement was the wall being constructed by the Israeli government, said Howard, but inside the West Bank every road contained a gauntlet of military checkpoints.
Drivers’ lives could also be at risk: a week earlier a taxi driver was shot dead, apparently by mistake, by soldiers at a temporary road barrier near the town of Tubas. The Palestinian union was collecting witness statements, while the Israeli union centre Histadrut was also trying to gather information from the military authorities. According to the union President, Naser Younes, military checkpoints were now the union’s number one concern.
Howard’s visit included meetings with Palestinian union leaders in Nablus and Ramallah and with Histadrut in Tel Aviv.
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