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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 12.11.07, Morning

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214) Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Tura-Shaked
Tags: Slow passage
Observers: Anna NS, Netta G (reporting)
Nov-12-2007
| Morning

06:00 – 09:30

06:00 Aanin Checkpoint

The first men are striding down the road, telling us that a hundred are waiting.
Two soldiers are checking people by the gate on the Seam Zone side. Listing of passers through is being done on the concrete block. The soldiers are working quietly.
Almost everyone is carrying a container of oil. Two tractors and four donkeys, one a cute newborn, also cross.
People complain about not getting permits or responses to applications.
07:15 – they say that another twenty people are waiting. We leave.

07:25 Shaked (Tura) Checkpoint

The small army camp to the right of the road is empty. The garbage skiff and surroundings are full of garbage.
Light traffic in both directions. A bulldozer comes from Yabed to carry out works at Dar el Malch in the Seam Zone.
Five older schoolchildren arrive and pass through the inspection hut.
A happy man tells Anna that finally his family members have received agricultural permits.
07:50 – a group of schoolchildren from Tura arrive on the run. No studies. There’s a strike. The children return home joyously. Even the checkpoint can’t spoil the happiness of their sudden holiday.

08:00 Rihan (Bartaa) Checkpoint

In the upper parking lot on the Seam Zone side, youngsters tell us that "today is good." They arrived at the checkpoint at 07:00 and were already out of the terminal at 07:15.
In the lower (Palestinian) lot, ten loaded pick up trucks are waiting. Four others are in the inspection compound.
08:05 – four pick ups are called to the vehicle checkpoint. The check is slow. The dog is not inclined to work today. After about twenty minutes the compound is free and trucks enter. Their inspection ends at 09:20. Four tenders checked in an hour and a quarter! In the same time two quartets of private cars were checked. Each quartet takes 25 minutes.
S., the operations officer of the checkpoint, comes over to drive us back from the vehicle checkpoint. We complain about the slowness of the checks. S. prods one of the workers.
09:20 – eight pick ups are waiting in the parking lot, seven private cars are waiting on the road.
Twelve adults and six children in festive garb are waiting in front of the gate, which closed for a reason unclear to us. After a few minutes the gate opens and all are swallowed into the terminal.
E., the driver, tells us that residents of Yabed and Zebda can pass at Mevo Dotan and Amriha. Others can cross there only if they have permits for Rihan. He says that all the dirt tracks have been blocked.
09:30 – we leave, wondering about the origin of the olive trees that now decorate the area of the vehicle checkpoint.

  • '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
      Mar-21-2022
      Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
      View the full album
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