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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, יום ב’ 5.11.07, בוקר

Tags: Crowding
Observers: Netta G, Anna NS (reporting)
Nov-05-2007
| Morning
Rihan, Aanin, Shaked

05:30 Reihan (Bartaa) Checkpoint

The checkpoint is still closed. In the lower parking lot there are a number of pick up trucks loaded with agricultural produce. Palestinian workers are cleaning the checkpoint. Security men are walking to their shifts. One of them opens for us the checkpoint at the parking lot with a hearty "Good morning." A soldier stands with weapon aimed in the position facing the lower parking lot.

More than 100 people are waiting for the terminal to open. A few score seamstresses are standing separately, to pass separately. Walid, followed by Said, arrives at the coffee station. Walid guides Said in the making of tea for the waiting vehicles: "No, you give that one in a glass!" He pulls one out and cleans it. Afterwards he goes around collecting into a nylon bag the plastic cups and the other debris from yesterday. Within a few minutes the waiting crowd go in by groups. They emerge from the turnstiles at a run straight into the terminal, where they can expect a long wait, so they rush to get good places in line.
06:00 – the traffic inwards is blocked – perhaps there is no room for everyone inside.
06:15 the first people come out up the sleeve to the upper parking lot. B. works in a Shahak plant: "Since Ramadan (the checking rooms) – it is worse."

At the vehicle checkpoint there are four cars with doors wide open as a dog goes through them as though they are its property. The owners driven to the side, sit waiting.

06:20 Aanin Checkpoint

The olive picking season has ended after 20 days – instead of three months. there are people who still haven’t received a permit to pass through to their work. Somebody complains that not all the olives have been picked. The people did not conceive that the season would be so short, and they did not go out every day. Now part of the crop will go to waste, and there are agricultural tasks not yet done – as they trumpet angrily.
People exiting Aanin are listed by the soldiers, one after the other, there are no delays. The checkpoint closes at 07:00 as the last of the workers go through. According to a helpful soldier, more than 110 people crossed this morning. Yes, they would wait for latecomers, he says, and would not close the gates in their faces.

07:10 Shaked (Tura) Checkpoint

Perhaps 20 people waiting on the West Bank side till the last of the schoolchildren and cars will pass from the other side. Routine behaviour as the soldiers check satchels. The older ones pass through the huit in both directions. One comes out, another goes in. The old man with his donkey arrives from the West Bank. The donkey is checked thoroughly: the cloth sacks on its back are turned over, and then the animal remains next to the soldiers, waiting while its owner is checked in the hut.
07:30 – Reihan (Bartaa) Checkpoint
 Routine traffic. The main people detained in the rooms are youngsters.
In the parking lot, scores of egg boxes are on the ground. A field cot and dirty mattress are tied to a post.
The taxi drivers are very angry about the new-old restrictions at Dotan Crossing. Since Thursday it is not clear who may, or may not, cross. The instructions are contradictory. After pleas, B. from the DCO arrived at the checkpoint to see the distress from close up. At the same opportunity the names of drivers were listed as permitted temporarily, and whoever was not listed on that occasion was added by phone. "Today was okay," they say bitterly, but what of tomorrow?
H., our disabled acquaintance, is not to be seen at the terminal. Seems he passes in a vehicle, as was agreed.
09:15 – we leave.

Location Description

  • '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).

  • 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)
      מחסום עאנין:  פרצה מפוארת במרכז המחסום
      Ruti Tuval
      Mar-21-2022
      Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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