‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 21.12.09, Morning
All through the morning – the drive, the stay and the way back from the checkpoint – the heavy feeling of tension over the Shalit deal. Let’s hope for a good end…
15-16 men and a number of tractors have crossed the checkpoint. Our acquaintance, the old man on a donkey, is also out. He got a pass for two years (!). We raise an eyebrow, and he says that in checking on his groves he was met by soldiers there, and therefore… Is it now true that the army tracks holders of permits on their fields?
Another man tells of severe distress in Aanin village. People without work, sick without medicine, despair eating away at every corner., unbearable situation, now augmented by the decree of restricted permits without which they cannot care for the source of their livelihood – agriculture.
We saw four youngsters being sent back the way they had come, apparently because of expired permits.
06:50 Reihan-Bartaa Checkpoint
Most of the workers have already passed. As have the seamstresses. An occasional taxi brings a group of late workers, immediately swallowed up into the terminal. They say that the checkpoint on the bridge has been eliminated, so that private cars and taxis from Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank can come down to Reihan Checkpoint without interference.
An older man from Kafin, owner of a shop in Bartaa, talks about the difficulty of making a living alongside the constant harassment at the checkpoint. He has a magnetic card, a permanent pass, and yet recently he doesn’t pass the biometric identification. Time after time he is sent to the DCO in Tulkarm, where they check him and say "everything is okay" and sent him back to the checkpoint to again confront the security men. Last time he brought from there a note that the "man is entitled to pass." This undignified note which he showed us was supposed to give validity to his claim to pass.
And we wondered: why do they do this to an elderly man? Why do they send him time and again and give him no help in solving the problem with a little more willingness and creativity? Instead of sending him to Tulkarm DCO, it would be possible to clarify over the phone. Expense, lost time and nerves – loss of a day’s work – are none of these worthy of consideration?
07:20 Shaked-Tura Checkpoint
About 30 people wait by the turnstile on the West Bank side. People passing to the Seam Zone enclave. The inspection in the hut is proceeding at a reasonable pace. Schoolchildren pass by the soldier with open satchels, including the small ones among them. The school principal from Hirbet Barta’a arrives in his car from the West Bank. He is stopped for a more thorough check. It’s the same every day. The man is rushing to school with several teachers in his car, but he has to undergo this check every day, in the same style, until a call to the DCO when the soldiers are told to let him go. Then he is released. He has to endure the daily humiliation.
In the evening, Raya announced that yesterday evening there has been a demonstration of residents of Dar el Malikh at Shaked Checkpoint. We did not succeed in finding out what that meant.
08:30 Jalame Checkpoint
On our way to pick up Suhail and her daughter Aya, to go to Rambam Hospital, we saw three buses waiting to take families on prison visits.
Appendix – a day and a half later…
Last night a man from Kapin called and said that his son's been arrested yesterday morning at Reihan Checkpoint when trying to return to the West Bank (without a pass) from East Bartaa. The father heard of the arrest and rushed to the checkpoint, presented himself by means of his ID card and asked to see his son, who was in one of the rooms of the police station. He asked to see him. At the checkpoint – everything is rigid. They didn’t allow him to approach, nor to see from a distance. Somehow the voices rose, the security men shouted at the father, who shouted back. They spoke insultingly to him, threw his ID on the ground. Till the late hours yesterday evening he did not know where the boy had been taken. We told the man that his son was in the detention centre at Salem camp. But today, a day and a half after the event, it is not possible to know whether the information is up to date and the youngster is still there. The father’s attempts to get information about his son failed. Tomorrow, a representative of the Association for Civil Rights will intervene. We hope for the best…
'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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