Aanin checkpoint: returned home with the backing of the High Court (!)
Neta: Permits instead of breaches
Ever since the breaches in the northern separation fence were closed, transit permits are issued Palestinians in unusual numbers. The rate of those entering through the Barta’a Checkpoint to work in Israel is tremendous. Apparently, people arrive here even from faraway sties in the West Bank. This morning we arrived earlier than usual at the Palestinian entrance to the checkpoint, at 5:45 a.m. We found very long waiting lines stretching from the car-park to the shed leading to the terminal through the turnstiles. The shed was filled to bursting, and amazingly quiet the entire time.
While some were waiting there for the turnstile to open, dozens – perhaps hundreds – of Palestinian workers continued to arrive in taxis and private vehicles, joining the lines. Opening time is 4:30 a.m. and Palestinians are pleading for it to be half-an-hour earlier. They claim this would solve the great pressure of their morning entrance and ensure their arrival to work on time. Our friend Hagar is still busy trying to persuade the directors of the checkpoint and the Ma’am workers’ association.
At 6:00, about a quarter-of-an-hour since we arrived and half-an-hour since the checkpoint opened the waiting line dwindled and traffic flowed unhampered until we left.
During that time, we met our good friend, a construction contractor from a village in the Jenin district. We had black coffee he had brought from home and poured into small cups. We were glad to see him. He is an old acquaintance, from the time years ago when he volunteered to bring order to the morning entrance riots at the checkpoint. We never stopped being amazed at him. He is a pleasant man, speaks Hebrew, has a BA degree in political science from the American University at Jenin. Under his influence, the waiting lines have been orderly and he was the last to cross over (!). A few years ago he fell victim to informants, perhaps to a competing Palestinian contractor, and Charlie – director of the checkpoint – confiscated his transit permit and ever since, to this day, he is blacklisted and cannot manage to lift this prevention. When we took leave, he gave us two bottles of olive oil from his own land, and two large, fresh flat breads with zaatar and cheese – a gesture of gratitude for our caring about him, as he said, and about Palestinians in general. Refusal was not an option…
Anin Checkpoint: We live until we die
We arrived at the Anin agricultural checkpoint shortly before 6:45 a.m., opening time. On the Palestinian side of the checkpoint waited over 100 people and two tractors. There was no sign of the gate keeping soldiers. DCO and Military Police vehicles arrived on time but the soldiers did not hurry to get out of them and open the gate. This morning only men crossed over, many of them young. Their point was to find work in the seam zone and perhaps in Umm Al Fahm as well. An older man from Anin summed this us with a loud insight: “We live until we die.”
Here crossing over is allowed by Supreme Court ruling!!
Everyone crossed over except for a single young man who was sent back home. We asked the soldiers what happened, and a Military Policewoman ruled: “He was late!”
“What do you mean, late? You are here and the gate is still open. Why shouldn’t he pass?” And the surreal answer we got was unprecedented: “Because according to the times set by the Supreme Court, he came late and therefore is not allowed through!!”
“The Supreme Court?”
“Yes. The Supreme Court”, the soldier repeated, and added in the notorious half-scholarly-half- hysterical tone of the Prime Minister’s wife: “I s r a e l ‘ s S u p r e m e C o u r t”.
You got it.
'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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