‘Anabta, Irtah (Sha’ar Efrayim), Wed 12.5.10, Afternoon
15:35 Anabta:
The checkpost is empty and all vehicles are going through. I commented to Shlomit, who will translate this report into Hebrew, that she will have about 6 sentences to translate! That was before we went to Irtach!
15:55 Irtah
When we arrived the turnstile was open and the few workers were going through the hall and out very quickly. No employees of the checkpoint or guards could be seen in the hall.
One Palestinian worker told us to watch until 16:30 when the chaos will begin.
It didn't take that long!!! At 16:05 the turnstile was locked, for no apparent reason.
We called into the empty hall to open the turnstile with no results. Workers were arriving and standing in line. Shlomit went to speak to someone in charge.
By 16:12 there were perhaps 150 workers jammed against the turnstile which was still locked.
In the empty hall we saw 4 employees of the checkpoint walking slowly and nonchalantly to 4 checking windows. Then we realized why.
At 16:15 the women and children who had been visiting at the prisons began to arrive.
The turnstile was opened but the pandemonium was intense. Men, women and children were all pushing to get through the turnstile. Arguments broke out. Some men were holding other men back from actually hitting each other. Some men were allowing some of the women and children to go through by physically blocking the workers. And then the workers would surge forward. All was chaos! The pushing and shoving was terrible. The workers were returning with bags of fruit and other things that made passage through the turnstile difficult, but even more so when being pushed with 2 and 3 men going through in the same opening. Women who had worked in the strawberry fields were returning with large boxes of berries on their heads and had difficulties going through the turnstile. Food and other things fell from bags that fell or were torn in the crush. Soon the area of the turnstile was littered with garbage.
Shlomit had talked with the person in charge of the passage Ephraim Gate. First, it's not a private company, he told her, it's a government company. And they were trying a new system of checking, where each worker had a magnetic card which he just put on a scanner and then could go straight through. It had just been installed that day and wasn't working very well. Does that explain the turnstile being locked when the largest crowd of workers want to go through? When it was opened the workers went straight through without being checked, so why was it locked?
The women who had been to the prisons had to stand in line at one of the windows and have their ID cards checked. Four workers had opened windows, but in a few minutes only two windows were working. Is this the best service that can be provided to these people after a day of work or a long hard trip for a short visit to the prison? If the women and children had gone through the passage in the morning then it is known that they will return in the afternoon, so couldn't the passage be better prepared to allow them a smooth entrance? And when will we have answers to our questions?
'Anabta CP
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'Anabta CP
The checkpoint is located south of the village of 'Anabta, at the intersection of Road 60 (leading to Nablus at the entrance to Area A), with Road (57, 557, 5576) facing west towards the Einav settlement and the checkpoint at the exit from the West Bank - Figs checkpoint. Until 2010 we used to watch the intersection and report the long columns created due to a slow inspection of the vehicles in both directions.
Oct-28-2011Anabta checkpoint 24.10.11
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Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)
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The checkpoint is for Palestinians only. It is the main barrier to the passage of workers from the northern West Bank to Israel. Workers with a permit to work in Israel and also for trade (with appropriate permissions), medicine, and visiting prisoners. One can cross the checkpoint only on foot. The checkpoint is located north of Road 557 and south of Tulkarm. Operated by a civil security company, opening hours: between 4:00 and 19:00 on weekdays. As members of Machsom Watch, we began our shifts to this location in 2007. We arrived before it opened at 4 in the morning and report since, on the harsh conditions and the long and crowded queues of workers. The workers who pass by continue their journey by transportation to work throughout Israel. In the first period of its activity, about 3,000 and then 5,000 people passed through this checkpoint every day. Due to the small number of checking points and arbitrary delays for long periods of time in the "rooms", workers feared losing their transportation. Hence workers leave their homes at 2:30 at night to be among the first. Today, 15,000 pass and the transition is faster. Workers are still leaving their homes very early to get past the checkpoint at 7 p.m. In an adjacent compound, there is a terminal for the transfer of goods on a commercial scale, using the back-to-back method.
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