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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 25.2.08, Morning

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214) Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Tura-Shaked
Tags: Cab drivers Detainees Slow passage
Observers: Neta G. and Anna N. S.
Feb-25-2008
| Morning
Translation: Devorah K.

06:00 A'anin CP
The gates are open. The soldiers are inspecting people in the center of the CP (on the slope). The place is at some distance from us and we learn about what is happening from reports of the workers.
06:15 – Five people have gone through.
06:30 – Until now only ten people have gone through. A young man whose permit of passage has been taken away from him, stands at the side. At the bottom [of the hill] about 70 people are waiting.
The soldiers write down the names of those going out and check their personal details on the thier list. People are no longer given a serial number. The tempo is so slow that it makes everybody angry. 
A man tells us that last Thursday, the passage lasted until 10:30 (on that day they reported that it was especially slow). He went out with his wife and another friend on a tractor to cut some twigs in a pine woods of the Jewish National Fund, about one kilometer from the CP, in the seamline zone. Policemen who passed by claimed that he was chopping branches with an electric saw – which was not in the area at all. Even though he showed them that all they had were dry twigs, they wrote a complaint and took him to Salem Camp for interrogation. He was released on bail of NIS 1200. In order to pay the bail he had to sell a sheep.
07:00 About 30 men and women are waiting in the center of the CP. The soldiers lock the lower gate on the side of the village of A'anin.
07:10 We leave.

07:20 Shaked-Tura CP
Traffic is relatively thin. Pupils go through hastily from the seamline zone to the West Bank. On the other side, workers are arriving, and on their way they go through the inspection pavilion.

07:35 Reihan-Barta'a CP
A few drivers are waiting for a few passengers. In the Palestinian parking lot there are fewer pickup trucks and private cars than usual. People – especially the young ones – complain about the long wait in sealed rooms. Walid asks us to get him a permit to go to Barta'a. There he will be able to make more money. He also wants to look for a bride there. He has given up on the idea of going to school. In his opinion, education would be of no use to him. In addition to his twelve–year–old brother, Sa'id, who is still studying, he has a thirteen–year–old brother who has nothing to do either.
We meet A. who came from Kafin to Barta'a. The second time we meet him is an hour and a half later when he leaves the terminal.
A group of eight inspectors (men and women), from the Ministry of Education in Jenin, enter the terminal and we decide to go up the sleeve and wait to see them when they leave in the direction of the seamline zone.
08:15. As we go toward the sleeve, we again meet Z., who is in despair. He is a taxi driver who is detained at the CP for an hour or more on every trip he makes to Ya'abed. He waits in vain for an hour until they tell him that he is summoned to the General Security Service at Salem for a talk. He is not sure whether or not he should go. In the past he was arrested and released only after 14 days even though he was not accuse of anything.
After a 15 minutes people begin to leave the terminal; all of them, especially the younger ones, look angry and upset because of the insult of having to spend so much time in the inspection rooms. Then the biology inspector comes out; her colleagues are still inside the terminal. This group of inspectors comes to the schools in East Barta'a every few weeks. A bit later a man comes out and tells her that the inspectors have decided to do without the humiliation in the rooms, and are going back to Jenin. She turns around and goes back to the terminal.
09:25. We leave.

  • '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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