Aanin checkpoint: the harvest stopped for one day
05:50 Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint, Seamline Zone side
The parking lot and the road leading up to it are packed with buses, minibuses, taxis and regular cars. They’ve all come to drive the Palestinian workers to Israel and the Seamline Zone. Some people are praying, others waiting in the hut where the lights are on. I go down to the terminal through the long sleeve (covered and fenced pathway), hardly able to make my way through the stream of people going up to the parking lot. At this time of day, they are all men, most of them young. I’m surprised to see people praying right at the entrance to the terminal. Maybe praying is what makes it possible to earn a living and bear the occupation in silence. I try to find out what’s happening in the parking lots beside the road on the other side of the barrier. The language is a problem, but the person running the cafeteria in the sleeve says that the Liaison and Coordination Administration shut them down, even though the man who ran them was a good guy (?).
06:20 – fewer people are crossing by this time and the parking lot is less crowded.
06:30 Anin checkpoint – olive harvest season
Because of the harvest, the checkpoint is opened every day. On Monday and Wednesday, it was opened at 6:30 a.m. On Tuesday it wasn’t opened because of a security incident in the area. Two female soldiers are getting organized in the hut. Three male soldiers arrive in a civilian car. The farmers are waiting on the other side of the locked gate. They are all waiting for the soldiers to arrive with the key.
06:55 the key arrives! The gate is opened and people start crossing one by one (one after the other), 5-7 per minute. One of them says “Great, good soldiers.” Another complains about one-by-one and the late opening. He thinks that we can convince them to open at 06:00. If only! I estimate that during the time we were there, more than 150 people crossed, a dozen or so women, three children and about 10 tractors. Among them, a woman, proudly presents her granddaughter. One of the men says that in the past his wife and children were allowed to go through but they haven’t been given an agricultural pass in writing and they are not allowed in. Let’s hope that HaMoked – the Centre for the Defense of the Individual – can help.
07:30 People are still going through, but we leave.
07:35 Tura-Shaked checkpoint
Not much traffic at this hour. A few schoolgirls are on their way to their high school in Tura. A group of female teachers are walking in the other direction to the primary school in Daher el Malek. A few people are waiting in the hut. One of them complains that the teachers are required to wait in line to be checked just like everyone else. Says that at their own initiative, the Palestinians allow teachers and the elderly to go to the head of the line. People complain about the late opening time – 07:00 – which makes it impossible to get to work on time. They say that even that time isn’t kept to and sometimes the gate is opened only at 07:15.
07:45: We drive home. At the junction leading to the Anin checkpoint, people are still waiting for transport.
'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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