The Ministry of National Security has requested an additional budget for securing crossings from Judea and Samaria into Jerusalem, to the tune of 75 million shekels. The Finance Ministry has refused to approve the addition.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s staff claim that as of Saturday, all the checkpoints around Jerusalem employ approximately 200 civilian security guards, when properly manning them all would require approximately one hundred more.
The severe lack of manpower in the checkpoint security sector has caused reductions in the number of lanes available at each checkpoint, which in turn causes severe traffic jams and security risks.
Thus far, the body helping to cope with the shortage has been the Border Police. With the ongoing demands the war has placed on the corps, the Border Police have announced that they can no longer devote officers to the checkpoints.
Earlier this week, the Border Police in Jerusalem published a letter to the relevant authorities that they would be reducing lanes at all checkpoint, leaving only one lane open at most of them.
Minister Ben-Gvir’s staff claimed: “The implications of failing to fund the checkpoints is abandoning the security of the settlers, nothing less. It seems that the Finance Ministry has forgotten what happened on October 7th, and prefers sticking their heads in the sand.”