Palestinians in the occupied West Bank know they shouldn’t ask what time their loved ones are going to make it home. There’s simply no way to give an accurate answer. What used to be a short ride from one place to another could now take hours, or it might not happen at all.
Before driving, Palestinians check dedicated WhatsApp and Telegram groups and channels where people share updates on road conditions. But this isn’t typical traffic news: Instead, chats focus on which Israeli military checkpoints are open, which roads are off limits to Palestinians and whether Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians as they drive their vehicles. Sometimes pins are sent to warn people driving near towns where Israeli forces are conducting raids.
And if there’s no time to check the groups, then there’s always Basma FM. The Palestinian radio station, based in Rawabi near Ramallah, carries three traffic updates per hour. The channel started broadcasting on October 2, 2023 – just days before the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and what has become a pogrom against Palestinians in the West Bank.
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 team had originally planned traffic updates as part of their programming.
Her department has seven employees who verify information with their sources and provide updates on roadblocks. We could say there’s a closed checkpoint and Israeli soldiers decide to reopen it. Or vice versa,” Barqawi explained.
The issue for Palestinians driving through the West Bank isn’t simply being late for appointments or held up for hours – it’s that there is an inherent danger to travelling in the occupied territory. Palestinians in the West Bank drive white-plated vehicles, making them easily identifiable compared to the yellow-plated cars driven by Israeli settlers. Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinians near checkpoints after claiming they were conducting ramming attacks, and Israeli settlers often attack Palestinian cars or block them from using certain highways.
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