This makes access and transportation a particularly significant concern
for villagers, because serveeses will not run due to the associated risks
and costs which contributes to an escalating sense of isolation.232
Sometimes the [Israeli] soldiers come to the town and prevent us from
going in [to al-Thubra]. If the soldiers are in town, it would be almost
impossible to access. The other day I walked next to the soldiers while they
were standing on the road because the driver refused to give me a ride to
al-Nahla, he told me he couldn’t because there were soldiers there. I had to
carry my son and my stuff and walk into al-Nahla. Despite the fact that the
other passengers complained to the driver and asked him to give me a ride,
he still refused to do so because of the soldiers. He left me on the street and
I had to walk all the way to my home.
Yusra Abu A’hour, housewife from al-Thubra (Wadi Rahhal)
Interview: al-Thubra, 11 October 2017
My sons walk a long distance [two kilometers] from al-Nahla. Sometimes
I don’t send Mohammad to school because of the problem in his muscles,
he can’t walk. […] I don’t have money to pay for a car to drive my sons
to school. So my sons have to walk: they walk in the winter and they also
walk when it is really hot […] My son Mohammad once had a fever, his
temperature was really high and there were no cars at all, no transportation.
I had to wait until the next day to take him to the hospital. Now he has a
hearing problem, he can only hear in one ear. This is because of the fever,
and because there were no cars to take him to a doctor that day.
Amena Fawaghra, mother from Wadi Rahhal
Interview: Wadi Rahhal, 9 November 2017
•
Encirclement and confinement with colonizer roads: Bethlehem is
now ringed by an Israeli-controlled road network that serves as a
barrier encircling the city. Routes 398 and 356 to the north and east,
Route 3157 to the south, and Route 60 to the west provide an almost
complete encirclement.233 These roads provide a tangible physical
barrier to Bethlehem’s natural growth by securing its confinement to
a limited space, particularly given the military regulations prohibiting
Palestinian construction within 150 meters on each side of a colonizer
232 BADIL, supra 156, 104.
233 BADIL, supra 156, 11.
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