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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Sun 9.11.08, Morning

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214) Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Tura-Shaked
Tags: Crowding Hitches at checkpoints Slow passage
Observers: Yocheved J. and Hannah H.
Nov-09-2008
| Morning
Translation: Devorah K.

06:00 – A'anin CP
The CP opened at 5:30 and at this time people are already going out to work.
By 6:10 all the tractors, with the women and the children, leave.
From 6:10 on a slow stream of people keep leaving the CP. The soldiers tell us that the gate will remain open until 7:00.

06:20 – Reihan-Barta'a CP
The CP, which has opened at 05:00, is now relatively quite. Most of the people have gone through and on to work. A group of agricultural workers is waiting for a ride. One car on the way from the West Bank to the seamline zone is being inspected in the shed. A taxi with students goes through from the seamline zone to the West Bank. The people going through insert a magnetic card and hand over their IDs, and within 5 minutes they are on their way. Only one window is operating in the terminal.
At 6:55 all the workers who havwe been waiting for a ride in the upper parking lot, are gone.

07:15 – Shaked – Tura CP
The CP is already open, but on the way we met only three workers who have gone through. At the entrance to the CP from the side of Tura, many people (about 50), who want to go through to the seamline zone, are crowded together. There are also a few vehicles. Nobody goes through and the shouts of "Back, back" are heard. It turns out that the x-ray machine in the inspection room is out of order and the soldiers have decided not to let people through.
Tura schoolchildren go through immediately without inspection. But students on their way to Jenin wait in their car until 07:30. A car taking pupils to Ya'abed is waiting, even though the children have already gone through. (The car will be able to go on only at 07:45.) A passenger car on the way to Ramallah, apparently on some urgent errand, is forced to turn back several times, with the soldiers yelling and the passengers protesting. Only when they return to the CP for the third time, do the soldiers agree to inspect their papers and in a minute they go through. But the noise and the crowding near the entrance cause them some additional delay. Another three people went through to the seamline zone by 07:25.
The head of the Salem DCO confirms to us that they know there is a problem. But he "does not understand why there is so much excitement about it. Let them wait a little bit." In the meantime a vehicle with soldiers arrives, among them a colonel.
At 07:40 the passage of the people begins with the inspection being done outside (as was done for a long time, and therefore it is not clear why it was impossible to begin this earlier, and without the shouts and the preaching). The cars from the West Bank begin to go through as well.
At 08:00, Mansur from the DCO arrived to see what was happening. It seems that during these days, workers going through this CP include olive-pickers who work in the settlements. And that is why there is so much pressure.
When we left at 08:00 ten people and two cars were still waiting to go through to the seamline zone.

08:10 – Reihan CP
Six pickup trucks with goods have been being inspected since 07:00 in the closed compound. Another seven pickup trucks are waiting. Four passenger cars from the West Bank entered the big tent for an inspection that lasted twenty minutes. Pedestrians in the CP go through in seven minutes.

  • '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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