RAMALLAH: For Jabar Ziyaada the daily drive with a truckload of chicken across a hazardous stretch of wasteland to northern Ramallah is a matter of economic survival.

At the moment, Ziyaada drives his pickup truck into Ramallah each day, leaving his home in the northern village of Dura al-Qaara at around five in the afternoon to deliver chicken to traders in the city.

But with the Israeli army’s announcement on Monday of a complete ban on Palestinian drivers into and between the five West Bank towns of Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tulkarem and Ramallah, Ziyaada’s business has come under threat.

Despite the drastic tone of the ban, which outlaws driving except for humanitarian reasons, it does not appear to have taken effect yet in Ramallah, where the streets remain heavy with traffic.

However, Ziyaada is starting to consider other, more traditional modes of transport in order to continue trading.

“One donkey and two horses should be good enough for my work,” he says, as he plans for the ban’s enforcement.

For the time being it is business as usual along Ziyaada’s route which passes in front of the Jewish settlement of Beit El, a crossing point which locals call the Jawaal entrance.

Formerly the main northern entrance to Ramallah, traffic has already been outlawed here since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000 when the Israeli army closed the road to all drivers.

Now the wasteland running in front of road has become one of the most well-used, albeit illegal, crossing points into northern Ramallah and, for many, a vital trade artery.

Taxi driver Behaa Zaid, 25, who regularly navigates the crossing, says he knows about the ban, but says nothing will stop him from driving. “Whatever they do to us, we can’t stop driving. We can’t afford to stop,” he says.

Cars, shared taxis and lorries zigzag as fast as they can along the winding dirt track which cuts between the heaps of rubble and the deep, ragged trenches to avoid being caught by the army.

A refrigerated lorry carrying ice cream jerks its way along the tortuous route, but suddenly gets stuck on a mound of earth.

Within minutes, a crowd gathers around the truck, a group of youngsters jumping on the front bumper in an attempt to rock it over the blockage.

No other vehicles can pass until it moves, so everyone pitches in to help before the army turns up, which will mean everyone’s keys and identity cards get confiscated.

From the opposite direction, a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance pushes its way past the beleaguered ice cream truck, heading for an unpassable area to pick up a woman who has suddenly gone into labour.

The heavily-pregnant young woman, her pale face twisted in pain, lurches unsteadily over the mounds of rubble, clutching her belly and leaning on the arm of an older woman.

She is 21-year-old Nida Eyad, a mother-of-one who has just been ferried to the crossing by taxi from the Jalazun refugee camp north of Ramallah.

“May God kill all the Arab leaders because they are the reason why we are suffering,” shouts an elderly woman.

“I am a sick woman, I have heart problems. No-one, not even God, understands that I have to walk all over this on foot,” she rages, pointing round at the uneven wasteland.

For three youngsters from the Jalazun refugee camp, running the gauntlet of the Jawaal crossing is like a game, and one from which they can earn themselves a bit of money.

“As soon as the curfew is lifted, we know there is work here,” says Mohammad Numad, a diminutive 11-year-old who charges between five and 10 shekels (up to two dollars) for carrying bags from one side of the crossing to the other.

Working 12 straight hours from six in the morning the boys can make up to 50 shekels (10 dollars) a day, he says.

But even those on foot run the risk of being stopped by the army.

“A week ago, we had just carried 60 boxes of tomatoes from one side to the other when the Israelis turned up and they made us take them all back again,” another boy says.

A Palestinian teen with an outsized-bronze urn strapped to his back is also making good business out of the daily crossing, hawking cups of icy carob juice to those trekking across the divide on foot.

“If they clamp down on traffic, my business will be affected for sure,” he says. “Working here is better business than I would do in the centre of Ramallah.”—AFP