Palestinians lose about 60 million hours of work per year, due to check points and restrictions imposed, by the Israeli occupation, on Palestinian movement between the towns and villages of the West Bank, the Applied Research Institute (ARIJ) reported Monday, according to Al Ray.

ARIJ estimated the loss at about $ 270 million per year, according to the wage of workers per hour, in addition to extra fuel consumption at about 80 million liters per year, estimated at $ 135 million.

The consumption of the vehicle, which runs at a very low speed for long periods (1 – 10 km / h), according to certain calibrations, is about 0.049 liters / minute and 0.035 liters / minute for diesel engines and gasoline, according to the Institute.

The consumption of this amount of fuel leads to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, by about 196 thousand tons per year.

According to some scientific studies, the consumption of one liter of fuel leads to the emission of 2.4 kg of carbon dioxide.

The study includes monitoring and documenting the movement of Palestinians at 15 major Israeli military checkpoints between the cities of the West Bank and 11 checkpoints which have restricted the movement of Palestinians through Jerusalem and the occupied territories since 1948.

The study used GPS technology to monitor and document the movements at the checkpoints.

He pointed out that 70 GPS tracking devices were installed on Palestinian vehicles (public transport vehicles, buses, commercial transport, in addition to private vehicles). These vehicles were chosen according to their daily route and movement between the Palestinian cities.

Each tracking device monitors the location, time and speed of the vehicle every 10 seconds, which allowed to calculate the time spent by the vehicle at the military checkpoint accurately.

It noted that it collected data from the beginning of January to the end of July 2018, and during this period it collected more than 18 million readings of tracking devices.

The fieldwork team conducted a traffic count at the checkpoints, where all vehicles passing through these checkpoints were registered within one day from 6 am to 6 pm.

It also used the questioner at the checkpoints separating the West Bank cities from Jerusalem and the occupied territories of 1948, in order to know the time spent by the Palestinian worker at these barriers.

It pointed out that a questionnaire was prepared and a random sample (600 questionnaires) were distributed to 11 barriers used by workers.

Opinion/Analysis 07/08/19 Remembering the 2014 Israeli Offensive against Gaza

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail