Machsom Watch

Machsom Watch is a women-only, volunteer-run Israeli organization whose work combines checkpoint observation, public reporting, humanitarian assistance, and advocacy concerning Palestinian movement and civil rights.[10][6] Teams monitor selected checkpoints, publish written and visual records, and sometimes help Palestinians address permit or administrative problems.[11][12]

The organization has operated since 2001 and was formally registered under the legal name "Women's Fund for Human Rights, Ltd." in 2004.[7] Its activities later expanded beyond traditional checkpoint shifts to include monitoring roadblocks and other barriers and accompanying communities in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills.[9]

Machsom Watch traces its founding to a morning in February 2001, when five Jerusalem women — Ronnee Jaeger, Adi Kuntsman, Yehudit Keshet, Yael Lavi-Jenner, and Stephanie Black — went to Checkpoint 300, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, to observe conditions there.[3] The organization's own history identifies that visit as its beginning. By April 2001, the group had grown to roughly 30 members and was conducting two or three observation shifts a week.[3]

The impetus, as the organization describes it, was a series of press reports about Palestinians — including women in labor, heart-attack patients, and wounded individuals — being delayed at checkpoints in cases that reportedly ended tragically.[12] The founders brought stationery to document what they saw and later extended their visits to crossings into Israel used by Palestinian workers and farmers.[12] The decision to limit active membership to women was deliberate: the founders believed women would be perceived as less threatening and that mixed organizations tended to disempower women.[3][12]

The group was established, in its own words, "in response to repeated reports in the press about human rights abuses of Palestinians crossing army and border police checkpoints."[10] Membership is open exclusively to Israeli women, and the organization describes itself as politically pluralistic while requiring opposition to the occupation as a prerequisite for joining.[10] Adi Kuntsman organized the reporting procedure and established the computer system used to manage it.[3]

Machsom Watch operates through volunteers, has no administration, and makes decisions by vote at plenary meetings.[6] Teams of two or three women visit selected checkpoints at dawn or in the afternoon, observe traffic, speak with Palestinians, soldiers, Border Police, police, and civilian security personnel, and try to assist in humanitarian cases.[11] Members record observations with photographs and video and post reports to the organization's website. Reports have also been distributed to Knesset members, military commanders, High Court judges, the State Comptroller, other human-rights organizations, journalists, and recipients abroad.[10][6]

In the organization's more active years, shifts lasted several hours and individual members participated weekly or every two weeks, while groups of about five women went to checkpoints twice daily throughout the year.[4] In 2004, the organization said it had about 400 volunteers; a 2023 interview placed peak membership at around 450.[13][8] The 2024 annual report counted 150 active volunteers.[7]

Beyond observation, Machsom Watch engaged in advocacy and direct assistance. Members met or phoned senior military officers about specific problems, helped Palestinians navigate Civil Administration paperwork, and assisted with work-permit applications. The organization claims that thousands of people had their names removed from security blacklists through this process and that it helped address access to water, hospitals, and courts.[12]

Volunteer Ina Friedman described the organization's philosophy of public reporting as distinct from that of other Israeli human-rights groups. "We believe sunshine is the best disinfectant," she told The Times of Israel, contrasting Machsom Watch's daily published reports with groups that preferred to report problems only to the army.[14]

Machsom Watch's reports became part of public and institutional discussions of checkpoint conduct. The U.S. Department of State's 2005 and 2006 human-rights reports identified it as an Israeli women's organization monitoring checkpoints in the West Bank and Jerusalem and summarized allegations drawn from its reports.[2][1]

The 2005 report recorded a Machsom Watch account of an October 4, 2004 incident at Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus, in which a Palestinian man was said to have been beaten and kicked by Israeli soldiers following an argument. The man was reportedly hospitalized with a concussion and required stitches.[2] A separate account from the same period described a young Palestinian woman from Bethlehem who said she witnessed soldiers at the "Container" checkpoint southeast of Jerusalem strike her father with truncheons while he sat in his car.[15] The Department presented these as attributed accounts rather than independently established findings.

The 2006 report said Machsom Watch's monthly reports alleged a series of abuses involving Palestinians or their vehicles at checkpoints.[1] On January 3, a volunteer observed Israeli soldiers conducting strip searches of Palestinians at Jubara checkpoint, including a doctor attending an ambulance; the account was presented as the volunteer's observation.[1][16]

A 2004 IDF Education Corps training kit, "Values in Combat — Checkpoints," included an official reference to Machsom Watch and described its members as believing their presence could help prevent harm to Palestinians.[17] The kit analyzed real checkpoint incidents for soldiers and addressed the psychological toll of checkpoint duty, including helplessness and burnout.[17]

In a report on religious freedom in the West Bank and Gaza, the State Department cited a 2020 Machsom Watch report alleging that Israeli authorities employed three methods to effectively "erase" Muslim religious sites: placing them inside closed military zones or nature reserves, opening shrines to the public while removing their Islamic identity, and declining to recognize their significance in Islam.[18] Machsom Watch further stated that Palestinians were denied access to 13 sites of traditional Muslim or interfaith significance.[18]

The same State Department report noted separately that the Israeli government said it coordinated access to the Prophet Samuel's Mosque for 1,500 Palestinian residents of nearby villages during the year. The report did not frame that statement as a direct rebuttal of Machsom Watch's broader claims.[18]

At Qalandiya checkpoint, longtime volunteer Ina Friedman — who said she had monitored the crossing weekly for ten years on the organization's behalf — welcomed the opening of a facility with six metal-detector stations and 27 automatic gates, replacing three narrow walkways and five inspection stations.[19] About 4,000 people, mainly Palestinian workers, crossed there each morning.[19] Friedman acknowledged the physical improvement while arguing that Israeli military control over the West Bank and its daily effects had not changed.[19]

Over two decades of activity, Machsom Watch adapted as checkpoint infrastructure changed. Member and documentarian Neta Efroni, who filmed roughly a decade of the group's early work, observed that newer terminal-style checkpoints — with soldiers separated from Palestinians by multiple layers of glass and more structured queuing — reduced some of the direct physical crowding she had recorded.[8] Efroni characterized that change as largely cosmetic and maintained that the occupation's underlying conditions remained.[8]

In 2007, the organization requested permission from the Israel Airports Authority to station a monitor at Ben-Gurion Airport security stations. The request was denied, but the group continued to pursue it, with activist Maya Bailey scheduled to meet the authority's head of security to discuss ethnic profiling and the treatment of non-Jewish passengers.[20]

After October 7, 2023, Machsom Watch expanded its work beyond traditional checkpoint monitoring to document new barriers that appeared without notice and to visit Palestinian villages and Bedouin communities.[9] Fixed checkpoints where the organization previously conducted regular observations were often closed or operating unpredictably.[9]

The 2024 annual report recorded 319 monitoring shifts across five regions and counted 793 fixed checkpoints and closures, supplemented by an estimated 150–200 weekly temporary "flying checkpoints."[7] In 2025, the organization conducted 375 monitoring shifts and published 375 detailed reports. It also increased its accompaniment of Palestinian shepherds, farmers, and families — including during the olive harvest — in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills.[9]

Machsom Watch has faced criticism from right-wing Israeli groups and pro-Israel research organizations. In 2004, the right-wing group Women in Green accused its members of intimidating and harming soldiers through their checkpoint observations and urged soldiers to file complaints; Machsom Watch dismissed the campaign.[13] NGO Monitor has assessed the organization's reporting as politically motivated and questioned its reliability, an assessment reflecting NGO Monitor's critical perspective rather than an uncontested institutional finding.[5] A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs article listed Machsom Watch among local NGOs it characterized as "politicized."[21]

A prominent disputed incident in 2004 involved Palestinian violinist Wissam Tayam at Beit Iba checkpoint. Reports alleged that soldiers had forced him to play, but an IDF inquiry concluded that a soldier asked Tayam to open his violin case for inspection and that he played voluntarily.[22] The inquiry said testimony from two Machsom Watch members and a recording supported that conclusion, and the Central Command chief stated that there had been no intent to show disrespect.[22]

Tayam told a separate interviewer that soldiers demanded he play and threatened to beat him.[22] Machsom Watch said its members recorded the situation but not the conversation and argued that the broader issue was the pressure Palestinians faced at checkpoints.[22] The available accounts do not resolve the conflicting testimony.

In 2013, MK Orit Strock filed a lawsuit against Machsom Watch seeking NIS 200,000 in damages over song lyrics written by members about Strock and her son, alleging malicious accusations, incitement, and libel.[23] Machsom Watch defended the lyrics as artistic satire and a form of free expression about an elected official.[23] The outcome of the suit is not recorded in the cited report.