‘Anin, Barta’a-Reihan
07.05 Anin checkpoint
This morning, we chose to go to the Anin checkpoint instead of Tura-Shaked. Both of them open at 07:00. The road between Mei-Ami and Um-Reihan has been repaired with bright black asphalt, but at the turn to Anin, the road is still full of pot-holes and pits . . .
We passed the first gate and continued on foot as far as the interior gate. There we met the civil-administration representative and the checkpoint commander (a captain), who's allowed us to observe the inspection procedure for about ten minutes. The inspections appeared to be strict : all the bags that the Palestinians carried (usually filled with clothes and food) were inspected, including the bags containing the plastic sheets which are spread underneath the olive trees (it is the olive-picking season now). We saw at least one of the young men being sent back because one of his bags didn’t pass the stringent inspection.
A graduate of the English department at the American University in Jenin , who had come to help with the olive picking, became very angry about the soldiers’ attitude and their violation of the Palestinians’ human rights in general.
We passed several tractors and donkeys, together with their riders. We heard complaints that in many families only one family member is allowed to participate in the olive harvest. In fact, those whose olive groves are on the slope going down to the Wadi (valley), which are full of olives (“like grapes,” as they said) haven't receive enough permits, and those that were issued were valid for only one month. The olive- picking season, including the work that's required afterwards, lasts more than a month . . .
The story told to us by a woman riding on a donkey particularly touched our hearts. Her eyes were red, either from an infection or from crying (two of her daughters, aged about twenty, had died of cancer). Her husband and only son are not permitted to accompany her to pick olives in their orchard, which is situated far from the bottom of the Wadi and to which access is on the back of a donkey or on foot. The army has already refused, for several years, to open another gate to provide access from the patrol-road, near this olive-orchard. We shall try to help her via the olive-picking coalition, together with public activists in Anin.
At 07:30 children from the Beduin settlement in the Wadi were picked up by their truck and taken to their school in Um-Reihan,, and we also took some hitchhikers with us.
08.00 Barta’a/Reihan checkpoint
Trucks were leaving the inspection site and others drove up to it. At the top of the “Sleeve” (enclosed corridor), mostly tradesmen arrived from Barta’a, carrying glasses of coffee and produce from the Hermesh settlement. “Everything is OK” they told us.
'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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