‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 20.4.09, Afternoon
15:00 Aanin Checkpoint
As we arrive a Military Police car that had stopped was just leaving. About ten people waiting to go home on a very hot day.
Five soldiers and a Hummer, with engine running (as usual) and four soldiers sprawled in an unclear mode on a merciless day. The residents had bought salty cheese and want to take it home. The soldiers refuse. It’s small quantities for family consumption – not commercial. They plead and the others block their ears and hearts.
One of the men is carrying a transparent plastic bag with two bottles of milk. Also forbidden… Another, wanting tio make his wife happy, had brought her a present, a packed gown, or maybe two. The soldier fingers them and decides – no!!
A soldier passes a resident after peering in his bag, and swearing (in Arabic) that, on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, next time he will take his permit – not clear why…
We talk to the soldiers, try to soften them into letting the residents take their cheese through. The soldiers are silent, ignoring…
A man on a tractor tries to persuade, and as he fails the tone of voice rises. All fury… Pulls an old shirt out from the tractor and waves it in the air in irritated gestures.
We phone the DCO. The Head of DCO is on the phone. Leah runs to the soldiers with the cell phone. They refuse to talk to him. H. from brigade refuses to alter the decree. She is certain that the residents bought the cheese in Israel. So what? In any case, cheese is taken to Aanin today – tomorrow a cow… Merciful lord…
We return to the soldiers. One of them throws at us that we are delaying the checking and harming the residents, for whom it is oh so hot! Everything happening quietly, pleasantly and politely enough to make you vomit…
The milk products stay behind the fence, the people pass.
We buy cheese from a Bedouin waiting on the side, to compensate for the shame.
15:45 Reihan-Bartaa Checkpoint
We wait about ten minutes with Ali, the sick child coming from Rambam Hospital after chemotherapy. Till approval comes to take him through in a car, not through the terminal. The first of the workers are returning home – from Shahak Industrial Area and the seamstresses first. Within half an hour the stream picks up. The workers pass in groups. "Everything’s okay." A few score all told. The drivers sit, idle in the heat, waiting in vain for passengers. At 16:30 prayers on rugs under the roof, then back to idling.
Repeatedly we’re told about about the crowding and distress at Irtah in the morning – long lines and carousels into which are crushed old people and women without separation.
Five tenders loaded with foodstuffs and a short convoy of private cars waiting for inspection on the road. Natters proceed according to the lists without difficulties. Only the heat radiating from the asphalt and the apathy of those present already fed up of complaining about the situation, and leave us be with questions about what was… "This is our lives. In the garbage – you don’t see?"
Yes we do see!!!
'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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