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‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Thu 24.7.08, Morning

Observers: Sima S., Anna N.S.
Jul-24-2008
| Morning
Translation: L.W

05:00 Reihan-Bartaa Checkpoint
Scores of people crowded into the entrance, women sitting on the side as usual. From the guard’s hut, the usual morning "pearls": “Sacher el bab [close the gate], sacher el bab, I told you, nu sacher already, Iftchou el bab [open the gate] yalla, taalu [by god, come here], hamsa, hamsa, bas [five only]. I said five, not twenty! Back off! Yalla nu lura [back]. Futu, futu, wahad wahad [pass].”

On the way to the temple, shoes off, bags open. Everything as usual! The crow outside moves in. The residents remain waiting in single file this time at the entrance to the terminal.

05:25 – the checkpoint empties out, and whoever comes now enters the terminal,immediately. Two private cars are being checked, by the dog too. Four pickups loaded with vegetables in the parking lot.

05:30 – the seamstresses say there is a jam in the terminal, and only one position is working. After half an hour we are told that another window opened. Going through the terminal usually takes 20-35 minutes.

06:00 Aanin Checkpoint
Traffic is slow. First of all the (four) tractors, then the people. The checking process is routine. The pace is a few minutes per person, then it picks up. Loud voices of people waiting on the slope. People exiting say that there are arguments about positions in the line. No wonder, people have been waiting since an early hour of the morning, there is no shade, nowhere to sit. The soldiers lose patience and try to calm things but only increase the tension.

07:05 Shaked (Tura) Checkpoint
A flock of scores of sheep is flooding the checkpoint. A flight of seagulls passes over the soldiers’ heads from one end of the checkpoint to the other, perhaps to show that they can… a moment of imaginary pastoral tranquillity. Residents of the West Bank crowded at the entry to the inspection hut. For a long time no one comes and no one goes. After seven minutes we talk to a soldier about it, and he goes to see what is happening. A minute more and the jam unravels for a short while. The soldier says that the checker in the hut is new and hasn’t yet got the hang of the complicated task. Before we leave, he promises to help the other soldier to speed up the transit.

07:30 Aanin Checkpoint
Not everyone has passed yet . An anxious woman is trying to get back to her home in Aanin. She is the only one in the family to have an agricultural permit. Neither her husband nor her children can come with her. She hoped that the soldier would show consideration and pass her blacklisted son, without a permit. The soldier did not, and how was she to work alone? The soldier agrees to let her through on condition that I explain to her – next time that she goes through, she can only return at 15:00. I am to tell her that today he will be considerate – doing her a favour, letting her go home. Did she understand? There should be no doubt… next time she won’t go through and back. This isn’t a promenade. Let the son get a permit at the DCO. I promised him that the woman, completely consumed by anxiety and tension, understood everything, just let her through already… 

Around 100 people and a heavy vehicle have already passed. Some were sent back because “they are trying to fool us.”

07:50 Reihan-Bartaa Checkpoint
Scores of people passing in both directions, mostly to the Seam Zone. Drivers resting in the shade of their vehicles till inspection. Bored taxi drivers wait for passengers. Meanwhile they are telling jokes. Laughing at themselves and at the whole world. Yesterday they blocked the roads in the area of Ramallah and Jenin in honour of Obama. What do we care about Obama? Because of him the roads were closed for long hours. In Yaabed the water pump was not functioning, and the residents were forced to buy water from a tanker that circulated in the village. Five cubic metres of water for 170 shekels.

An older man in uniform, armed with a gun, parks his car in the middle of the road and asks for a ride to Mevo Dotan. Finally he decides to wait for a bus to the settlement (#27) and then drive behind it. “That’s okay?” there are two roads in the West Bank: one for Palestinian residents and other Arabs, and one for Israelis. Between them sit the guard huts. The former are required to undergo the persistent and humiliating process of inspection and interrogation, while the “elite” citizens pass through the checkpoints quickly.

A bus passes en route to Jenin. All its passengers (20) are delayed for inspection at the hut, and then they reboard and continue on their way. They don’t have to walk through the sleeve – that’s also something!

09:00 – 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

    See all reports for this place
    • 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
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