Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have learned not to ask when their loved ones will make it home.
There is no reliable way to know. A journey that once took minutes can now stretch for hours, or be halted altogether.
Before setting out, many Palestinians check dedicated WhatsApp and Telegram groups where drivers share real-time updates on road conditions. But these are not ordinary traffic alerts. The messages focus on which Israeli military checkpoints are open, which roads are restricted for Palestinian vehicles, and whether settlers are attacking Palestinians on the road.
Location pins are also shared to warn drivers near towns where Israeli forces are carrying out raids.
When there is no time to check those groups, many turn to Basma FM. The Palestinian radio station, based in Rawabi near Ramallah, broadcasts traffic updates three times an hour.
Basma FM began broadcasting on October 2, 2023, just days before the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, and a sharp escalation in violence and restrictions 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 station had originally planned to include traffic updates as part of its regular programming. “We thought we could tell parents picking up their children from school 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 through 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.
Risks on West Bank roads
For Palestinians driving in the West Bank, the concern is not only arriving late or being stuck for hours. Travel itself can be dangerous.
Palestinian vehicles carry white licence plates, making them easily distinguishable from the yellow plates used on vehicles driven by Israeli settlers.
Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinians near checkpoints after alleging they were attempting ramming attacks, while settlers frequently attack Palestinian cars or prevent Palestinians from using certain roads.
Such attacks have increased as Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law, continue to expand at a record pace.
Large infrastructure projects are hard to miss as Israel expands highways linking settlements to one another and to Israel. The result has been the further isolation of Palestinian communities, often leaving Palestinians to rely on poorly maintained roads or risky mountain routes to avoid settlers and roadblocks.
One young Palestinian woman, who asked not to be named, described the daily fear and anxiety of driving. “I used to blast my music and drive, now I’m on high alert. Always on edge.”
She said Israeli soldiers assaulted her fiancé near a checkpoint in Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, after mistakenly believing he had passed through 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.
Checkpoints and mounting restrictions
Many Palestinians say they have been assaulted, humiliated or detained at checkpoints and roadblocks.
Israel has long restricted Palestinian movement, controlling roads and limiting access to the wider world. Since the war on Gaza began, those restrictions have intensified.
As of December 2025, the United Nations had documented 925 barriers across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, a 43 percent increase over the 20-year annual average of 647, according to the UN humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA.
Nearly all villages and cities in the West Bank have iron gates at their entrances, and Israeli forces close them arbitrarily. Some gates are opened only during limited hours.
A new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the restrictions are used to fragment Palestinian life, with roadblocks and military checkpoints cutting people off from work, schools, hospitals and one another.
The report, titled The Elimination Project, describes a broad, rapid and systematic Israeli assault in the West Bank aimed at dismantling the foundations of Palestinian existence, with road closures forming one part of that effort.
That is why, as Heba Erkat prepared her notes before entering the studio for Basma FM’s Wednesday afternoon bulletin, she knew the information she was about to read could change quickly.
Her colleague delivered the news, and Erkat then began listing updates from 61 checkpoints across the West Bank.
It was a relatively calm day: only 12 checkpoints were either closed or experiencing long queues.
But, as Erkat noted at the end of the segment, “the situation changes by the minute”.
