For checkpoint and settler attack news, Palestinians tune into the radio

Palestinians in the West Bank navigate Israeli road closures and attacks with help from a local radio station.

The Palestinian radio station Basma FM provides regular updates on traffic delays in the West Bank caused by Israeli restrictions or attacks [Nida Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank know they shouldn’t ask what time their loved ones are going to make it home.

There’s simply no way to give an accurate answer. What used to be a short ride from one place to another could now take hours, or it might not happen at all.

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Before driving, Palestinians check dedicated WhatsApp and Telegram groups and channels where people share updates on road conditions. But this isn’t typical traffic news: Instead, chats focus on which Israeli military checkpoints are open, which roads are off limits to Palestinians and whether Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians as they drive their vehicles.

Sometimes pins are sent to warn people driving near towns where Israeli forces are conducting raids.

And if there’s no time to check the groups, then there’s always Basma FM. The Palestinian radio station, based in Rawabi near Ramallah, carries three traffic updates per hour.

The channel started broadcasting on October 2, 2023 – just days before the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and what has become a pogrom against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“Our idea was to target young people. We wanted to offer entertainment and culture news. But five days later, we realised we couldn’t,” said Fatima Barqawi, Basma FM’s news and traffic director.

The team had originally planned traffic updates as part of their programming. “We thought we could tell parents picking up their children from school to know where there was traffic, but after the war on Gaza started, we had to shift focus,” Barqawi said.

Her department has seven employees who verify information with their sources and provide updates on roadblocks.

“Things change each second. We could say there’s a closed checkpoint and Israeli soldiers decide to reopen it. Or vice versa,” Barqawi explained.

Dangers on the roads

The issue for Palestinians driving through the West Bank isn’t simply being late for appointments or held up for hours – it’s that there is an inherent danger to travelling in the occupied territory.

Palestinians in the West Bank drive white-plated vehicles, making them easily identifiable compared to the yellow-plated cars driven by Israeli settlers.

Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinians near checkpoints after claiming they were conducting ramming attacks, and Israeli settlers often attack Palestinian cars or block them from using certain highways.

These attacks are increasing as illegal Israeli settlements grow at a record pace.

It is hard to miss the large infrastructure projects Israel is implementing, expanding highways to connect Israeli settlements to one another and to Israel. This ends up isolating Palestinian communities, often forcing Palestinians to use poorly paved roads or dangerous mountainous routes to avoid Israeli settlers and roadblocks.

It’s a journey of fear and anxiety, a young Palestinian woman who did not wish to be named told Al Jazeera. “I used to blast my music and drive, now I’m on high alert. Always on edge.”

The woman recounted how Israeli soldiers assaulted her fiancé near a checkpoint in Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, because they mistakenly thought he had passed without stopping. A year later, she said, a soldier pointed his rifle at her.

“He was shouting at me. The sun was blocking my view, and I was careful crossing the checkpoint but that wasn’t enough. I saw the green beam [from the gun] and thought that was the end,” she said.

Attacks at checkpoints

Many Palestinians report being assaulted, humiliated and sometimes arrested at these checkpoints and roadblocks.

Israel has long imposed movement restrictions on Palestinians, controlling the road system and Palestinians’ access to the wider world. But since the war on Gaza began, these restrictions have intensified.

As of December 2025, the United Nations documented 925 barriers across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, a 43 percent increase over the 20-year annual average of 647, the UN’s humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, reported.

Almost all of of the villages and cities in the West Bank have iron gates at their entrances, and Israeli forces close them arbitrarily. Some of the gates are only open during certain hours.

A new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the restrictions are used to deliberately fragment Palestinian life, with roadblocks and military checkpoints cutting off people from their work, schools, hospitals and one another.

The report, titled The Elimination Project, says there’s a broad rapid and systematic Israeli assault in the West Bank that aims to dismantle the foundations of Palestinian existence, and road closures are just one of them.

That is why, as Heba Erkat prepared her notes before heading into the studio for Basma FM’s Wednesday afternoon bulletin, she knew the information about to be read out could change rapidly.

Her colleague read the news, and then Erkat started listing updates at 61 checkpoints across the West Bank.

It was a relatively good day: only 12 of the checkpoints were either closed or had long queues.

But, as Erkat noted at the end of the segment, “the situation changes by the minute”.

在当地电台的帮助下，西岸的巴勒斯坦人应对以色列封锁道路和袭击的情况。

巴勒斯坦广播电台 Basma FM 定期更新因以色列的限制或袭击造成的西岸交通延误情况。[Nida Ibrahim/半岛电视台]

被占领的西岸巴勒斯坦人知道，他们不应该问自己的亲人什么时候才能回家。

根本无法给出准确答案。以前从一个地方到另一个地方只需很短的车程，现在可能需要几个小时，甚至可能根本无法到达。

以色列在西岸设立的三个检查站之一正在扼杀巴勒斯坦经济

非政府组织警告称，以色列正努力清除巴勒斯坦人在西岸的存在（共3项，此为第2项）。

美国特使：以色列必须在定居者暴行中保护西岸巴勒斯坦人（共3项，此为第3项）

巴勒斯坦人在开车前会查看专门的WhatsApp和Telegram群组和频道，那里会分享最新的路况信息。但这并非普通的交通信息：聊天内容主要集中在哪些以色列军事检查站开放、哪些道路禁止巴勒斯坦人通行，以及以色列定居者是否会袭击驾车的巴勒斯坦人。

有时候，以色列军队会在城镇附近进行突袭，并向驾车者发放警示徽章以示警告。

如果没时间查看群组信息，还可以收听巴斯玛调频电台 (Basma FM)。这家位于拉马拉附近拉瓦比的巴勒斯坦电台每小时播报三次路况信息。

该频道于 2023 年 10 月 2 日开始播出——就在哈马斯领导的以色列于 10 月 7 日发动袭击、以色列对加沙发动种族灭绝战争以及在西岸对巴勒斯坦人进行大屠杀的前几天。

“我们的想法是瞄准年轻人。我们想提供娱乐和文化新闻。但五天后，我们意识到我们做不到，”巴斯玛调频电台新闻和交通总监法蒂玛·巴尔卡维说道。

该团队最初计划将交通信息更新纳入他们的编程计划。“我们原本想告诉接孩子放学的家长哪里堵车，但加沙战争爆发后，我们不得不改变工作重点，”巴尔卡维说。

她的部门有七名员工，负责向消息来源核实信息，并提供有关障碍物的最新信息。

“情况瞬息万变。比如说，一个检查站关闭了，但以色列士兵决定重新开放。反之亦然，”巴尔卡维解释道。

道路上的危险

对于驾车穿越西岸的巴勒斯坦人来说，问题不仅仅是赴约迟到或被困数小时——而是在被占领土上旅行本身就存在着危险。

西岸的巴勒斯坦人驾驶白色车牌的车辆，与以色列定居者驾驶的黄色车牌的车辆相比，很容易辨认。

以色列士兵声称巴勒斯坦人进行冲撞袭击，并在检查站附近将其杀害；以色列定居者也经常袭击巴勒斯坦人的车辆或阻止他们使用某些高速公路。

随着以色列非法定居点以创纪录的速度扩张，此类袭击事件也在不断增加。

以色列正在实施的大型基础设施项目令人瞩目，这些项目包括扩建高速公路，将以色列定居点彼此连接起来，并延伸至以色列境内。这最终导致巴勒斯坦社区被孤立，巴勒斯坦人常常被迫使用路况糟糕的道路或危险的山路，以避开以色列定居者和路障。

一位不愿透露姓名的巴勒斯坦年轻女子告诉半岛电视台：“这是一段充满恐惧和焦虑的旅程。我以前开车时会把音乐开得很大声，现在我时刻保持高度警惕，如履薄冰。”

这名女子讲述了以色列士兵如何在被占领的约旦河西岸南部希伯伦的一个检查站附近袭击她的未婚夫，因为他们误以为他没有停车就通过了检查站。她说，一年后，一名士兵用步枪指着她。

“他冲我大喊大叫。太阳挡住了我的视线，我小心翼翼地通过检查站，但这还不够。我看到了（枪口的）绿光，以为死定了，”她说。

检查站袭击

许多巴勒斯坦人反映，他们在这些检查站和路障处遭到袭击、羞辱，有时甚至被逮捕。

以色列长期以来对巴勒斯坦人的行动实施限制，控制道路系统和巴勒斯坦人与外界的联系。但自加沙战争爆发以来，这些限制措施愈演愈烈。

联合国人道主义事务协调厅（OCHA）报告称，截至 2025 年 12 月，联合国记录在被占领的西岸地区（包括东耶路撒冷）共有 925 个障碍物，比 20 年的年均 647 个增加了 43%。

西岸几乎所有村庄和城镇的入口处都设有铁门，以色列军队会随意关闭这些铁门。有些铁门只在特定时间开放。

以色列人权组织B'Tselem发布的一份新报告称，这些限制措施旨在蓄意破坏巴勒斯坦人的生活，路障和军事检查站切断了人们与工作、学校、医院以及彼此之间的联系。

这份名为《消灭计划》的报告称，以色列正在西岸进行广泛、迅速且有系统的攻击，旨在摧毁巴勒斯坦人生存的基础，而封锁道路只是其中一项措施。

正因如此，当赫巴·埃尔卡特在前往巴斯玛调频电台周三下午新闻播报室之前准备笔记时，她知道即将宣读的信息可能会迅速变化。

她的同事阅读了新闻，然后埃尔卡特开始列出西岸 61 个检查站的最新情况。

今天情况相对不错：只有 12 个检查站关闭或排起了长队。

但正如埃尔卡特在节目结尾指出的那样，“情况瞬息万变”。