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‘Anin, Reihan, Mon 26.1.09, Morning

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214) Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
Observers: Leah R., Anna N.S.
Jan-26-2009
| Morning
Translated by: Louis Williams

06:00 Aanin Checkpoint
The checkpoint is open. People are being checked at the gate in the centre of the checkpoint. Today they are not listing the people going out, but checking personal details on a list. The check takes a long time, and it is very cold. There are still school holidays, and the families are recruiting the youngsters for weeding and hoeing the groves. Families, mostly women and children, are passing. They are all complaining that expired permits are not being renewed. The small number of transients recently tends to validate that contention. DCO officer T. indirectly confirms, and argues that the agricultural season (olive picking) is over. According to him there are 500 holders of passes in Aanin and that "is far and away enough." To my argument that there were in the recent past more than 1000 permit holders – he does not respond.

06:30 – reinforcements of soldiers from the DCO. We ask to talk to them, but they refuse.. The lower checkpoint gate closes. A few score and some tractors move up to the centre gate.

07:00 – a number of men detained. The DCO officer is checking about them on the phone, and finally allows most of them to pass.

07:30 – we leave after most of the farmers have passed – 60 people, and children, and tractors – at a very slow pace.

07:40 Reihan Checkpoint

The checkpoint is deserted, like recent weeks. One of the drivers says that in a day’s work they earn at best 40 shekels. Therefore there are almost no drivers. They have gone to seek another livelihood. There are many private cars in the parking lot. They tell us that on the way to Jenin there are many rolling checkpoints where they are primarily checking IDs of youngsters.

One of the drivers, young with children, sowed five dunams of land next to his home with wheat as extra livelihood. A military vehicle passing by entered the plot. Maliciously or not, it trampled his crop. According to the man, there is a road next to the field – why did the army vehicle have to travel across the field?

In the lower parking lot, the sleeve leading to the terminal is full of men and women, waiting. Meanwhile they are not letting comers in until the pressure lessens. Following our conversation with the DCO rep., apparently, the blockage broke up and the pace returned to normal. Later they told us that only one position was open, and that explained the slowness. No one was put in the side rooms today.

Two vans are waiting for inspection. There are apparently tenders in the inspection compound. Four private cars, all their doors open and a dog prancing between them.

09:00 – we leave.

At Bartaa E. from Kafin told us that the villagers are getting notices about impounding of their land for the purpose of paving a road to Jordan. People are hurt, livelihoods are hurt. He tells us of a woman with two children who received an eviction order prior to demolition. The man sounded desperate, not knowing where help will come from. What will happen with the small children who grow in this atmosphere? The question hangs on in the air.

  • '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.

  • 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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