מחסומי הצפון: החיילים הגיעו, אבל אין בכוונתם לפתוח את המחסום
05:45 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
About 10 seamstresses wait for transportation to the sewing factory in East Barta’a. Small groups of workers go up from the ‘sleeve’ (the enclosed pathway) from the terminal to the empty and quiet upper parking lot (quiet, compared to the past). “The market square is empty.” We don’t know if the smaller number of people passing the checkpoint is because of the reduction in the number of passage permits to Israel, or because of the reduction I construction in Harish.
Some of the workers work in the Seamline Zone and some in Israel. In the terminal, the windows are open; in each one there is are two people, who are chatting without doing anything most of the time. The lower parking lot is not full and almost no taxis arrive with passengers. We also notice that there are only a few vehicles with merchandise for the market in Barta’a. This is also not as it has been in the past when many cars would park at night in order to grab a space in line first thing in the morning.
One of the workers complains that he’s not allowed to pass through the checkpoint with a cup of coffee that he has bought at the entrance.
06:30 – Anin Checkpoint
The soldiers haven’t come yet. We hear the people and the tractors that are waiting below for the opening of the checkpoint.
06:35 – The soldiers arrived but they do not intend to open the checkpoint. They sit in the shelter, amuse themselves and do exercises with their weapons. We look for and find flowering orchids.
Our phone calls to the District Coordination Office are not being answered. Is there a change in the opening hours that no one knows about?
07:00 – The soldiers get up and open the gates; all the people driving tractors enter the area of the checkpoint and approach by threes to the inspection station. Forty people pass through, among them three women and a child, and three tractors. One man was sent back to his village because he had lost his permit.
Two of the women have permits to pass only at Anin Checkpoint, despite the fact that they live in Tura (a long trip away). Both women were not born in Tura; one was born in Jenin (and her daughter lives in Anin) and the second was born in Anin, but they both live in Tura since they have married. This is not the first time we have run into this phenomenon: when permits are given to Palestinians, no thought is given to where they live today; only where they were born.
'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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