Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli Security Service Shin Bet, stated that Israel must not remove any of the over 700 roadblocks and checkpoints that cover the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank. He said that only when the Annexation Wall is fully completed should the possibility of removing roadblocks be considered. The Israeli Prime Minister agreed, during a one-day conference in Annapolis, MD, USA in October 2007, to remove roadblocks and cease the construction of settlements for Israeli civilians on illegally seized Palestinian land. But the Israeli government has not removed roadblocks as promised, instead constructing new temporary checkpoints on a nearly daily basis, and maintaining all existing checkpoints and roadblocks. In addition, the Israeli government approved the expansion of a number of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (there are currently nearly 500,000 Israelis living in violation of international law on land seized by the Israeli military in the course of its occupation of Palestinian land).
The Israeli Defense Ministry reported that ten dirt mound roadblocks were removed over the weekend, but did not indicate where those roadblocks were, and no Palestinian source could confirm that any roadblocks in the West Bank were actually removed.
Diskin stated Sunday that the roadblocks and checkpoints are necessary to protect Jerusalem from attacks by Palestinian fighters. But Palestinian leaders have criticized Israel's policy of maintaining checkpoints on every Palestinian road, every few kilometers, saying that the location of the hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks indicate that they have nothing at all to do with Israeli security, but are instead meant to deny the Palestinian people their right to freedom of movement, even within their own land, let alone outside of it.
