Israel’s wartime curbs ravage West Bank economy

For two months, 65-year-old businessman Osama Amro was too nervous to leave the city of Ramallah, the economic heart of the occupied West Bank.

In response to Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack, Israel has accompanied its siege of Gaza with a blockade of a different kind in the West Bank — shutting checkpoints between Palestinian cities, choking the flow of goods and workers between them, and frequently leaving people stranded.

“I never left Ramallah for two months and I used to travel every month outside the country,” said Amro, whose businesses include solar farm installation, construction and a mechanic garage. “I’m afraid to tell you the truth . . . [I] might not be allowed to come back.”

The restrictions on movement — accompanied by military raids — are part of a series of steps by Israel’s government in response to Hamas’s attack that have severely disrupted the West Bank’s economy. Settlers in the occupied areas have also launched their own attacks. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed, mostly by the Israeli military, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, according to the UN.

Since the war began, Israel has almost entirely stopped allowing Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Israel for work, and throttled the flow of Palestinian citizens of Israel entering the West Bank to shop. Some Palestinians have also become too afraid to move around of their own accord.

At the same time, Israel has withheld tax revenues that it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the territory.

Israeli officials say that the restrictions on movement are a response to “imminent Palestinian terror threats” against Israelis in the West Bank, and that cities formally under PA control, such as Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem, were “hubs” for militants. “Israel has zero tolerance for terror and will…