Palestinians Lose Their Lifelines
West Bank Villagers Cut Off From Jobs, Doctors, Shops

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A01

AJUL, West Bank -- Fozan Mohammad, like 90 percent of the adult men in Ajul, is out of work. Malik Mahmoud, who set up a blacksmith shop in his yard, has to wait so long for rods and sheet metal that most of his projects rust before he can finish them. And Muyasser Ayed and her injured son spent more than three hours on a recent morning trying to reach a doctor's office in the city of Ramallah, just 10 miles to the south.

Ajul, a sun-scorched Palestinian village of 1,200 souls that is accessible by a single rocky dirt track, has lost its lifeline. Six weeks ago, when the Israeli military clamped a curfew on Ramallah, people here were severed from their livelihoods, their doctors and medical clinics, their shopping opportunities and just about any major services a rural community needs to survive.

"The curfew on Ramallah means automatic closure for us," said Fozan Mohammad, 40, an unemployed bus driver, father of four and town council member. "It has affected every aspect of people's lives -- economic, social, anything you can think of."

The curfews that Israel has imposed on seven of the eight major cities in the West Bank, combined with an expanding network of roadblocks and checkpoints designed to increase security for Israel and Jewish settlers, have isolated hundreds of Palestinian villages. In response to one of the most violent 24-hour periods in recent weeks -- 15 people died Sunday and early Monday in five attacks -- Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has said the military will begin even stricter enforcement.

"No one goes in and no one goes out," Ben-Eliezer said. "In all of the major cities, there is no movement between the population centers."

The curfews and roadblocks, which affect 700,000 city dwellers and hundreds of thousands of villagers, have already put most Palestinians out of work, driven up poverty and child malnutrition and are bankrupting towns and villages, according to international aid organizations and dozens of interviews throughout the West Bank. Rather than stop suicide bombings and attacks, many Palestinians have argued, the aggravations of daily life created by the travel restrictions are only increasing the levels of anger and resentment.

"People are frustrated," said Wael Mahmoud, 34, a poultry butcher who is one of the few employed men in Ajul. "Now half the population wants to carry out suicide bombings. People want to die."