Anin Checkpoint: Please stand behind the concrete
At the entrance to East Barta’a, few cars are parked and a coffee and snack stand is in operation. Not much traffic. Upon entering Barta’a, the prominent sight is of a huge number of cars – stolen or taken apart…
Along the road near the junction are vehicles waiting for passengers, who cross the Separation Fence and come from the West Bank to work in the Seam Zone and in Israel. Cabs and cars that brought them remain on the other side of the fence and park beneath the Palestinian villages of Kalkis and Daher Al Abed.
On the west side of road 611 is a military shooting ground, next to which several army and police cars are parked. Is it their presence that reduces the holes-in-the-fence crossings this morning?
06:30 Anin Checkpoint
The large hole in the fence and the dirt dyke next to it have not moved… Thus too the locked gate and the stubby yellow blocking columns around it. In order to let through the only Palestinian tractor at the checkpoint this morning, the soldiers remove two such columns. M. has been waiting at the gate since 6 a.m. Opening time is not regular, in spite of what a new soldier at the DCO tells us on the phone (6:10-6:55), and the Military Policemen have indeed not shown up yet. They finally arrive, very late, and are very disturbed by the fact that we stand in front of the concrete blocks and not behind them. We said we have been standing in front and beside these concrete blocks since they were still in kindergarten, so they retorted that this was a new order.
07:10 Barta’a Checkpoint
We set a meeting with a relatively young couple from the northern West Bank village of Tayibe, who wish to open a second-hand shop. They were glad to receive our bags and told us they had already rented a room at 170 shekels a month for this purpose. The meeting was moving and we wish them all the luck in the world.
07:30 Toura-Shaked Checkpoint
There is hardly any traffic at this time. The school year has opened in the Palestinian Authority. A schoolhouse has finally been opened in the nearby village of Daher Al Abed – for the time being only elementary level – so the younger children no longer need to cross the checkpoint to Toura. The heart-rending sights of sweet 6-year-olds opening their school bag for inspection by armed soldiers equipped with all their necessary defense gear have begun to fade. Two “older” schoolchildren, in their freshly-pressed attire, reach the checkpoint on their way to school.
'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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