‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 9.1.12, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
06:20 A’anin agricultural checkpoint
An especially cold day, few people going to work – only a few dozen. The procedures are conducted in the front portion of the checkpoint. A youth isn’t allowed through; he returns from whence he came. A minute later he shows up holding some document which doesn’t satisfy the soldiers who send him back again. A man coming through said they didn’t let him cross because his birth certificate wasn’t enough for the soldiers; they wanted him to bring a parent (he was 12-16 years old).
The children of the Bedouin family living at the foot of the checkpoint are excited. There’s an English test today; the girls examine us, whether we can read English and perhaps even some Arabic.
07:00 Tura (Shaked) checkpoint
The soldiers arrive now at the checkpoint, which opens ten minutes later to people coming from the West Bank to the seam zone. Most of those crossing to the West Bank are vehicles, pupils and students, functionaries and other workers. The pupils come running, open their school bags, soldiers check and they go across. Nothing special is happening. The occupation routine! Both the horse and its rider know what they have to do; everyone plays the game perfectly.
07:40 – 08:20 New Barta’a checkpoint
The lower parking lot is completely filled with Palestinian vehicles. People coming from the West Bank enter the terminal without delay. Everything seems to proceed peacefully. The scanner doesn’t expose what people are feeling as they enter and leave. We get hints from their comments when we say “Shalom” as they pass us: “What peace? Peace with whom?”
Trucks loaded with food wait on the road for their turn to be inspected.
A rainbow arcs across the sky but immediately changes its mind. Heavy gray rain clouds cover the sky. We hurry to pick up a father and his two small children to bring them to Rambam Hospital. Another slight delay while the father’s identity is verified, and why didn’t he coordinate his trip ahead of time, and other questions that are asked very politely – but aren’t able to conceal the fact that the negotiation is being conducted between the ruler and the ruled. And at the same time Israeli vehicles cross in both directions with a wave of the hand, and then disappear.
'Anin checkpoint (214)
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'Anin checkpoint (214)
'Anin checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence east of the Israeli community Mei Ami and close to the village of Anin in the West Bank. It is opened twice a week, morning and afternoon, on days with shorter light time, for Anin farmers whose olive groves have been separated from the village by the fence it became difficult to cultivate their land. Transit permits are only issued to those who can produce ownership documents for their caged-in land, and sometimes only to the head of the family or his widow, eldest son, and children. Sometimes the inheritors lose their right to tend to the family’s land. The permits are eked out and are re-issued only with difficulty. 55-year-old persons may cross the checkpoint (into Israel) without special permits. During the olive harvest season (about one month around October) the checkpoint is open daily and more transit permits are issued. Names of persons eligible to cross are held in the soldiers’ computers. In July 2007, a sweeping instruction was issued, stating that whoever does not return to the village through this checkpoint in the afternoon will be stripped of his transit permit when he shows up there next time. Since 2019, the checkpoint has not been allways locked with the seam-line zone gate (1 of 3 gates), and the fence around it has been broken in several sites.
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Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
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This checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence route, east of the Palestinian town of East Barta’a. The latter is the largest Palestinian community inside the seam-line zone (Barta’a Enclave) in the northern West Bank. Western Barta’a, inside Israel, is adjacent to it. The Checkpoint is open all week from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Since mid-May 2007, the checkpoint has been managed by a civilian security company subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. People permitted to cross through this checkpoint into and from the West Bank are residents of Palestinian communities inside the Barta’a Enclave as well as West Bank Palestinian residents holding transit permit. Jewish settlers from Hermesh and Mevo Dotan cross here without inspection. A large, modern terminal is active here with 8 windows for document inspection and biometric tests (eyes and fingerprints). Usually only one or two of the 8 windows are in operation. Goods, up to medium commercial size, may pass here from the West Bank into the Barta’a Enclave. A permanent registered group of drives who have been approved by the may pass with farm produce. When the administration of the checkpoint was turned over to a civilian security firm, the Ya’abad-Mevo Dotan Junction became a permanent checkpoint. . It is manned by soldiers who sit in the watchtower and come down at random to inspect vehicles and passengers (February 2020).
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Tura-Shaked
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Tura-Shaked
This is a fabric of life* checkpoint through which pedestrians, cabs and private cars (since 2008) pass to and from the West Bank and the Seam-line Zone to and from the industrical zone near the settler-colony Shaked, schools and kindergartens, and Jenin university campuses. The checkpoint is located between Tura village inside the West Bank and the village of Dahar Al Malah inside the enclave of the Seam-line Zone. It is opened twice a day, between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., and from 12 noon to 7 p.m. People crossing it (at times even kindergarten children) are inspected in a bungalow with a magnometer. Names of those allowed to cross it appear in a list held by the soldiers. Usually traffic here is scant.
- fabric of life roads and checkpoints, as defined by the Terminals Authority in the Ministry of Defense (fabric of life is a laundered name that does not actually describe any kind of humanitarian purpose) are intended for Palestinians only. These roads and checkpoints have been built on lands appropriated from their Palestinian owners, including tunnels, bypass roads, and tracks passing under bridges. Thus traffic can flow between the West Bank and its separated parts that are not in any kind of territorial contiguity with it. Mostly there are no permanent checkpoint on these roads but rather ‘flying’ checkpoints, check-posts or surprise barriers. At Toura, a small (less than one dunam) and sleepy checkpoint has been established, which has filled up with the years with nearly .every means of supervision and surveillance that the Israeli military occupation has produced. (February 2020)
Mar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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