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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 3.11.08, Afternoon

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214) Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Tura-Shaked
Tags: DCO (District Coordination Offices) Slow passage
Observers: Anna N. S. and Neta J. (reporting)
Nov-03-2008
| Afternoon

Translation: Devorah K.

14:10 Reihan-Barta'a CP
Only a few people are waiting above for a ride to Barta'a on the side of the seamline zone. Four cars are being inspected on their way to the seamline zone. Two more are waiting. There are no loaded pickup trucks at this time.
The seamstresses are returning to the West Bank from their work in East Barta'a. They arrive in the Palestinian parking lot in groups and are swallowed up by the taxis that take them to their homes. The calls of the Muezzins are heard from Zebda. In the parking lot shed a few people are praying.
A taxi arrives from Jenin. One of the passengers has a festive bouquet of flowers in her hand. This is an unusual sight in the CP. For some reason that is not clear to us, she and her friends have to wait for about ten minutes until they open the gate to the terminal.

15:10 Shaked-Tura CP
There is little traffic – pedestrian or vehicle – at this time. One person tells us that the new agricultural permit that he received said, by mistake, 'A'anin CP' instead of 'Shaked CP'. He now has to go to Salem to exchange the permit. This is after it was lost for a whole month between the Salem DCO and the Palestinian DCO in Jenin.

15:35 A'anin CP
At this time, residents of A'anin are returning to their homes from work. There is no queue. The gate is slightly open, and open wide only for tractors. Tractor trailers are full of people, mostly women. The soldiers did not believe one young girl who said she is fifteen. A soldier decided that she was 16 and needed an identity card. Only after he consulted with the DCO was the soldier convinced. A young fellow from the Bedoui village not far from the CP has a permit to go through at the Reihan CP. His wife is in a clinic in A'anin and the doctor determined that she has to go to the hospital in Jenin. The fellow asks to go through from here this once in order to take his wife to Jenin. Going all the way around to the Reihan CP  will take him an hour. At the DCO they agree to his request, but the CP commander refuses to talk to them via our telephone, and insists that the fellow go the long way around. After a short time the soldiers received their instructions and fellow was able to go through to his wife in A'anin.
15:55 A man from Umm el Reihan has family in A'anin and a permit to go through at the Shaked CP. He says that once a week he goes through to his family in A'anin in order to help them. This time the DCO did not help and the man is forced to go the long way round to the Reihan CP. We also wonder about this.
16:25 A large group of men arrives at the CP. One other man comes running after them. He arrived at the very last minute. The soldiers are already locking the CP, but he managed to get through. People are still complaining that their relatives have not received permits and there are not enough hands to help in the olive-picking. There are also some whose permits are no longer valid and the new permits that they have requested have not yet reached them.

16:45 Reihan-Barta'a CP
In the sleeve that goes down into the terminal there is a queue of about 70 people who want to return to the West Bank. All of them are tired after a day's work. Additional groups arrive and the queue gets longer and longer. Three women arrive with a baby and the tired men, very courteously let them jump the queue to enter the terminal. Only two windows are in operation. From time to time, individuals go through from the West Bank to the seamline zone and the passage of the workers is delayed. From time to time, people get caught in the turnstile, as if in a cage.
17:15 Anna phones Sharon, one of the people in charge of the CP, and asks him to open an additional window. Five minutes after that, a third inspection window is opened. The queue is still long, but the tempo of entering the terminal is much quicker. People tell us that the queue was especially long last Thursday, almost the whole length of the sleeve. They tell us too that during the last few days the passage to Israel through Taibe (the Gate of Ephraim?) is very difficult in the morning. (Many workers who live in the area of Jenin, are not allowed to go through to Israel through the Reihan-Barta'a CP and are forced to go through in Taibeh. They can, however, go back to the West Bank through the Reihan CP.)
17:30 Workers continue arriving at the CP. 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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