The land between the 1967 armistice line, the so-called Green Line, and the separation barrier being built by Israel in and around the West Bank is referred to as the seam zone. Many of the Palestinians living there hold West Bank ID cards, but their homes are on the western, or "Israeli side," of the barrier. While some have received Jerusalem identification cards allowing them to stay in their homes and move freely in Israel and the West Bank, others have only the West Bank permit, making them technically illegal in their own homes.

Two such people are Ruqayya and her mother Kefayah. When the wall was built through the village of Hizma, north of Jerusalem, their family’s three houses were separated from the rest of the village. 

“We are stuck here. We live disconnected from the world because no one can visit [our homes] without getting a permit to cross the checkpoint,” Kefayah told Al-Monitor at her daughter’s house. She added that when she had to go to the hospital urgently last year, she had to be carried to the Hizma checkpoint because Palestinian cars and ambulances are not allowed in the seam zone.

Surrounding the three small houses are rows and rows of apartment complexes in the Israeli settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev. The residents of the houses all hold West Bank IDs, but since they live on the "wrong side" of the separation barrier, to go anywhere they must to walk to and cross the checkpoint, which is about a kilometer away — every time Ruqayya needs to do her grocery shopping, when the kids go to school and when Kefayah has checkups at the hospital. When Ruqayya wants to see her husband, she also has to cross the checkpoint. He was among the original 37 people who once lived in the houses, but his name was erased from the list of people allowed to cross the checkpoint to get to their homes.