LONDON: A Palestinian man died on Sunday after suffering cardiac arrest while detained at an Israeli military checkpoint east of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Raafat Khairy Abu Khalil, 45, was being held at the Ennab checkpoint when emergency medical crews were called after reports that he was critically ill, the Red Crescent said in a statement.
Medics arrived to find Abu Khalil receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Red Crescent transferred his body to Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm.
Abu Khalil was a captain in the Palestinian Military Training Authority in Jericho, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
His death came amid mounting concern over movement restrictions across the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians reportedly face an expanding network of checkpoints, gates and road barriers.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said on Friday that the restrictions increasingly disrupt Palestinians’ access to work, health care, education and family life.
“Arbitrariness itself becomes a form of torment when every journey, every appointment and every family visit depends on whether a gate is open or a soldier allows passage,” Albanese said in a statement.
The restrictions have reportedly intensified since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.
As of December 2025, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had documented 925 checkpoints and other obstacles affecting movement for about 3.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The total was the highest recorded in two decades and 43 percent above the average for the previous 20 years.
