Northern checkpoints: Palestinian life is full of fences and checkpoints
16.00 – 14.40
ON our way to Barta’a Checkpoint we saw workers getting out of a car near the hole in the separation barrier on Route 611. They were returning from work in Harish and got into a vehicle that was waiting for them.
Reihan-Barta’a Checkpoint, 14:40
The seamstresses who work in Barta’a were returning from their work in East Barta’a. They work in four factories that produce sheets and parachutes for export. They leave for work each morning at 05:30 and return each day at 14:30. We also met two women who have jobs cleaning. None of the women were vaccinated against COVID-19 and they don’t talk about it.
Construction workers were beginning to return from work. The owner of the kiosk reported that fewer people cross at the checkpoint because many people cross through holes in the separation barrier.
15:15 Tura Checkpoint was quiet and dirty as usual.
Next to the tobacco field we discovered a new broad paved road leading to the lone house next to the checkpoint. The house is in the seamline zone but belongs to the village of Tura that is in the West Bank. A car loaded with building materials drove to the house. Evidently the Palestinians are also building and expanding their homes. In the tobacco field there were a lot of water containers and it looked like people were planning to cultivate more crops.
Two cars crossed to the West Bank and one to the seamline zone quickly.
A’anin Agricultural Checkpoint 15:45 – M., his son, and their tractor had been waiting to cross since 14:00 in hopes that someone would come to open the checkpoint officially. Five women, an 8-month old baby, and a man carrying a large microwave oven hurried to cross through the hole in the fence. Evidently they had come through the hole earlier.
An officer in a military vehicle who was inspecting the line stopped to talk to us. After a pleasant conversation he returned to the checkpoint and opened the gate for M.
'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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