‘Anin, Barta’a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked
05:50 Anin agricultural checkpoint
The soldiers are there, getting ready to open all three gates of the checkpoint.
06:04 the first to come out of the checkpoint is a couple. The man tells us that there are some tractors waiting, and about 20 pedestrians. Passage is relatively quick, and within 10 minutes almost 10 people pass.
There are shouts from a woman soldlier: "you go home," at a youngster who tried to pass with an expired permit.
06:15 – the first tractor passes, and there are three more. Some of the people who go through are young people, without bags, in working cloths. I ask: what will you eat, what will you drink until noon? they shrug; perhaps they did not understand what I said.
06:30 "There are no more people – no more permits", those who exit say, and I remember in frastration how we'd demanded and insisted that the occupation authorities add 800 – 1000 more permits for the inhabitants of the 4000-person village. At the time, supposedly, there was someone to talk to.
06:45 Barta'a – Reihan chekoint.
Occupation routine. Everything is normal, like any other day, as though this is how it has been since the creation of the world, as if this is the way the world goes: people go through a fenced, twisting passage, their movement is limited within their own country. As they emerge from of the inspection they loop their belts into their trousers, a cigarette between their teeth. Outside the security guards, who are the ones with the power and control, are moving around, telling stories loudly, above the heads of those passing through, maybe in order to diminish their own routine, indifferent to those below them, in more than one way.
07:05 Tura Shaked checkpoint
Dozens of people crowd around the gate in the Palestinian parking lot. Two soldiers return after depositing garbage in the big countainer outside the checkpoint. One of them tells me, agressively, that this is a closed military area, and it is forbiden to go through and/or to photograph. He just says it,, not because he knows anything, since I am not inside the area of the checkpoint. I ask why they don't put their own garbage container inside the area of the nearby military base. A few more teasing words from them, and I bite my tongue and don't answer.
Pupils come on foot from the nearby village. The girls in the striped uniform dresses are holding the hands of the little ones. From the other side of the checkpoint people start to emerge, saying "everything is allright".
08:00 The flow of people on both sides is diminishing, and we plan to move on. A soldier comes to us and asking us sweetly why we help the Palestinians, and offers that we should go to the Kasbas in Jenin and Nablus. I say that we are here not to help, but to protest and warn by being present, and to document the occupation. A few more irrelevant sentences, and wego our separate ways.
'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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Tura-Shaked
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Tura-Shaked
This is a fabric of life* checkpoint through which pedestrians, cabs and private cars (since 2008) pass to and from the West Bank and the Seam-line Zone to and from the industrical zone near the settler-colony Shaked, schools and kindergartens, and Jenin university campuses. The checkpoint is located between Tura village inside the West Bank and the village of Dahar Al Malah inside the enclave of the Seam-line Zone. It is opened twice a day, between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., and from 12 noon to 7 p.m. People crossing it (at times even kindergarten children) are inspected in a bungalow with a magnometer. Names of those allowed to cross it appear in a list held by the soldiers. Usually traffic here is scant.
- fabric of life roads and checkpoints, as defined by the Terminals Authority in the Ministry of Defense (fabric of life is a laundered name that does not actually describe any kind of humanitarian purpose) are intended for Palestinians only. These roads and checkpoints have been built on lands appropriated from their Palestinian owners, including tunnels, bypass roads, and tracks passing under bridges. Thus traffic can flow between the West Bank and its separated parts that are not in any kind of territorial contiguity with it. Mostly there are no permanent checkpoint on these roads but rather ‘flying’ checkpoints, check-posts or surprise barriers. At Toura, a small (less than one dunam) and sleepy checkpoint has been established, which has filled up with the years with nearly .every means of supervision and surveillance that the Israeli military occupation has produced. (February 2020)
Mar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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