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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 31.3.08, Morning

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214) Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Tura-Shaked
Tags: Children Palestinian farmers Passage Restrictions
Observers: Anna N.S., Irit A (guest), Neta G. (reporting)
Mar-31-2008
| Morning
Translation: Devorah K.
06:10 – 09:20

06:10 A'anin CP
Just when we arrived at the CP, the soldiers locked the gates. They were called out to an incident in the Separation Fence. They said that they would come back to re-open them. Three people succeeded in going through before they locked the gates and about fifty remained waiting in the rain. We went to the Reihan-Barta'a CP.

06:20  Reihan-Barta'a CP
Workers and seamstresses are emerging from the sleeve going in the direction of the seamline zone and getting into the vehicles that are waiting to take them to their work places. "Today everything is ok", they say.
The last of the seamstresses reach the lower parking lot on the Palestinian side, and are swallowed up immediately in the terminal. It is pouring. Six pickup trucks are already waiting for inspection, which will begin only at 07:00; and many drivers are waiting for non-existent passengers. W., the 'coffee boy', is napping at his stand.

06:50 – We returned to the A'anin CP.
People tell us that the CP was re-opened after about a quarter of an hour, and then again, at 06:30, the soldiers locked the gate in the direction of A'anin. The people are waiting in the area between us and the middle gate. Today no tractors are waiting. A man on crutches goes through limping badly. Irit and I help him by driving him to his destination. Anna remains at the A'anin CP.

07:30 Shaked-Tura CP
Young pupils go through running to school in Tura on the other side of the fence. About twenty people are waiting to go through to the seamline zone. Women students who are studying at the Open University in Jenin and three taxis are waiting to go through to the West Bank. A soldier warns us that if we take pictures of the inspections, they will be especially meticulous and people will be able to go through very slowly. He does not listen when we tell him that we are allowed to take pictures and that the threat to slow down the inspection is illegal. His friend understands this and says that there is no such thing as slowing the passage because of us. This morning the women students are required to go through the inspection pavilion. One of the people tells us that whenever there are new soldiers, the procedures change.

08:00 A'anin CP
The bags that belong to the people going through are inspected on the wet ground. There is no table for this purpose. When  people crowd together and step through the middle gate a short distance, the soldiers stop the inspection and force them back.
08:15: About 15 people are still waiting in the area between the gates. Three people were not allowed to go through. We do not know why.
Four people ask to go back to A'anin. They had been working with a tractor from Umm-a-Reihan, which broke down. The soldiers said that they would let them go back to their village after they finish with the passage of the people going to the seamline zone. People become very impatient and, again, step through the middle gate. A man who is being inspected at that moment helps the soldiers and shouts at his friends to step back.
08:25 We left before the passage was completed.

08:35 Reihan-Barta'a CP
People continue to emerge from the sleeve to the upper parking lot, on the side of the seamline zone, and get into the vehicles that are there to give them rides.
08:45 In the lower Palestinian parking lot, four loaded pickup trucks are waiting. Four others are in the inspection compound. Taxi drivers with their old cars are still waiting for passengers who do not show up.
W.'s competitor has already opened his cafe-car. In a place where there is not enough trade for one person to make a living, two are trying to earn a livelihood.
09:20 A taxi arrives at the upper vehicle CP with four children who want to go through to the West Bank. The security guard tells them that they will not go through without their father. It turns out that this morning they already came to the seamline zone, and the security guard told them then that they would not be able to return without their father. Maybe the sled near the vehicle CP was put there for them? I guess not.

  • '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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