Nuha A. Eleyan
Beit Hanoun border crossing (Erez) -the Gazans' gate to the outside world besides Rafah crossing- has become a trap of the Palestinians. Exploiting the citizens' need to travel to either the West Bank and Al-Quds, the Arab countries or the outside world, it hunts whoever it wants and throws him in the occupation prisons.
Suffocating Restrictions
Beit Hanoun border crossing, located in the north of Gaza, connects the Strip with the 1948 occupied lands, and allows Gazans to reach their work places inside Occupied Palestine. Moreover, it allows the humanitarian cases to go out to receive medicine, with prior permission.
The Israeli occupation restricts its procedures practiced along the crossing, through impeding and delaying the release of permissions -either for work or medication. Also, it often refuses to issue permission as an attempts to suffocate the citizens, causing a serious humanitarian and economic crisis in the city.
Exploitation
As it is the only space for the Palestinians to breathe after Rafah crossing, the Israeli occupation uses it as a trap to chase Palestinian citizens. After giving the citizens to pass, it arrests and investigates them. This is confirmed by Salah Abdel Atti, Director of the International Commission to Support Palestinians' Rights, in a special statement to PALM Strategic Initiatives Centre. He also stated that the border crossings of the Gaza strip are a trap of the Palestinians seeking to move between Gaza and the West Bank, or the humanitarian cases seeking medicine.
He added that Beit Hanoun crossing is one of the means of the Israeli occupation authorities to bring down the youths, as they blackmail them to treat their relatives in return for cooperating with the occupation authorities. They also arrest whoever refuses to deal with them, constituting a violation of citizens' rights to move and travel according to what Geneva 4th convention stated. This shows the occupation's escape from its legal commitments, as it acts as an above-the-law state with lasting support from the US administration.
According to a statistic issued by I.C.S.P.R, the Israeli occupation arrested 13 Palestinians while passing through Beit Hanoun crossing in 2021.
The policy of the Israeli occupation affects the Palestinian travelers psychologically, socially and physically. Most of them are patients that couldn't receive medicine in Gaza's hospitals; so, their path of treatment turns into a path of phycological and physical torture. And in many cases, patients get refused to be treated under flimsy security excuses.
Efforts to Encounter Occupation's Violations
Abdel Atti noted that the Human Rights centers in Gaza exert serious efforts to stop such practices and violations against the Palestinians. They address the UN Commissioner-General and the concerned bodies through submitting reports explaining the Palestinian travelers' suffering, supported by figures and statistics to expose the occupation's violations of the international laws.
He also confirmed that such efforts were successful in some cases, as they lift the security prevention imposed to several citizens banned from travel, and allowed a number of citizens to travel to receive medicine outside. However, those actions remain limited, stressing the importance of intensifying the international efforts to pressure the Israeli occupation.