The new walls of Jerusalem: Part 3 • From the West Bank, a circuitous road to market

"Obviously the whole situation has significant impact on Palestinians' lives and it has a huge impact on movement of goods and services," says Kevin Kennedy, the United Nations' Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory. "If you look at the AMA [the Agreement on Movement and Access signed by Israelis and Palestinians], we're far from the goals.

"The number of closures, blockades, ditches, earth mounds, and similar road hurdles are up 40 percent from this time last year," he continues. "That's coupled with the permits regime and limits on freedom of movement. A young kid of 20 from Nablus can't go to Ramallah to get a job and that stifles the labor force. In commerce, a journey that once took 25 minutes now takes two to three hours. So the very movement of trying to ship things, the added transaction and labor costs, the time involved, it just drives things up and up, reduces profit margins, and drives down productivity."

While Israel sees blocked roads and security checkpoints as preventive measures that have been successful at thwarting attacks, Tamimi sees them differently. "These checkpoints and walls will never stop someone who's keen on carrying out a suicide attack," he says, using the more popular term in the local Arabic lexicon: martyrdom operations.

Around a quarter to seven, he passes through the Kalandia checkpoint, an area with one of the most gnarled checkpoints between Jerusalem and the West Bank. He has spent up to an hour-and-a-half at the checkpoint in the past.

The heart of the bottleneck is for people trying to get into Jerusalem, which naturally is something Tamimi knows is off-limits to him. Instead, he continues, moving along with the morning rush-hour cars that have begun to fill the roads. He pulls into Ramallah, stops to make a phone call to the head office, and munches on a half-moon of pita bread.

Then he continues driving west, then south, until he reaches the Beitunia checkpoint. The time is 7:31 a.m. The usual customers are waiting: men who want to get their goods through, women who want to visit sons or husbands imprisoned at the nearby Ofer Military Base.

While they wait for the electronic gate to open, the men mill around. With a buzz and a jolt, the yellow gate starts to part, and, as it does, people gingerly and quietly walk through to present their IDs at the guardhouse, which is manned by the Border Police, a paramilitary unit.

A soldier in a military jeep starts beeping with a jarring horn meant to clear crowds.

"No pictures allowed!" a soldier yells at this reporter, ordering her and her interpreter back behind the electronic gate. No amount of negotiating and showing ID cards issued from Israel's Government Press Office seems relevant.

They send in a more senior officer, Capt. Oran Tibi, who gives the order for the journalists to leave. "This is security," Captain Tibi says. "You can't go into this passageway."

It's 7:56 a.m., and Tamimi's dairy products are waiting to be delivered to a driver at the other side of Beitunia. This is not the last delivery of the day. Thankfully, the trucks are refrigerated, which is key in the summer, when high temperatures and slow checkpoints can wreak havoc on a container of fresh milk.

Tamimi passes through just after 8:30 a.m. He still has two more deliveries and 11 hours of work to go.

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