In the village of Rujeib, southeast of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian-owned dairy farm suffered a severe blow when a routine shipment of raw milk was delayed at an Israeli military checkpoint. Al-Kamel Dairy Factory, established in 2022, has two distribution trucks permanently parked in its yard due to a sharp decline in market demand and mobility issues. The reason for this is the proliferation of military roadblocks across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.
These checkpoints were established to maintain Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and to guard Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law. This has coincided with a wave of pogroms by Israeli settlers on Palestinian towns and villages. There are about 925 checkpoints and military gates across the occupied West Bank, 147 located in the Nablus governorate, which is Al-Kamel’s primary market, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC).
There has been a drop of more than 50 percent in transport movement in the occupied West Bank since the onset of the genocidal war on Gaza. The disruptions caused by travel obstructions in the occupied Palestinian territory have severely inflated production and transport costs for Palestinian companies. Al-Kamel has seen sales decline by 30 to 40 percent, forcing the company to lay off at least 12 workers.
These checkpoints have led to obstructing movement and increasing transport costs, which necessarily reflects on the product’s price and production costs.” High unemployment rates, particularly after the suspension of work permits for Palestinian workers in Israel during the genocidal war on Gaza, and a decrease in salaries, have all affected economic activity in the occupied West Bank. Al-Kamel milk trucks now wait for two to three hours to exit Nablus and for longer at surrounding checkpoints. For a commodity as vulnerable to spoilage as milk, these delays are hugely costly for the company.
Delays at checkpoints have seen 10 tonnes of Al-Kamel’s milk go to waste. A March 2025 study published by the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) provides an alarming analysis of the situation. After monitoring 14 military checkpoints, MAS found that wait times range from 15 to 50 minutes, with the average delay for trips outside the Nablus governorate reaching 42 minutes – a 77.9 percent increase in original travel time.
It is estimated that 191,146 working hours are lost daily due to these delays, costing the Palestinian economy approximately 2.8 million shekels ($764,600) per day, or 62.2 million shekels ($16.8m) a month. Drivers are forced to cover extra distances to bypass closed checkpoints, costing an estimated 71,000 shekels ($19,203) in additional fuel daily. This is affecting the local economy in Nablus badly, with Mansour Aliwi, a local spice merchant, describing the city as a ghost town.
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