‘Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Thu 27.10.11, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
A’anin checkpoint
The checkpoint gates are open, farmers walk to work, the DCO vehicle arrives. Inspections are conducted at the middle gate, people wait at the lower gate and we can’t see them.
06:10 We hear noise coming from the waiting area. One person crossing says people are arguing about their place on line and the soldiers threaten to close the checkpoint. So for a few minutes – too many – people don’t cross. We go in to ask the soldiers what’s going on; they reply that everything’s ok – what’s important to them is that we leave the checkpoint area.
06:35 One of the people crossing complains that the soldiers are trying to “educate” the people who are waiting. He says that about 80 people are still waiting to cross.
The Bedouin children wait for their transportation. One receives new sneakers from a woman who lives in A’anin. Apparently she’s a relative of his. He’s very happy, and leaves the old sneakers at the checkpoint.
07:00-07:30 Shaked-Tura checkpoint
Little traffic. People appear to be pleased the checkpoint opens at 06:00, and cross early. A teacher from the Umm Reihan school goes through with a package of about ten books. They’ve been translated by a British organization and donated to the school library. The teacher brings them through in small packages to avoid having to “coordinate.”
07:25 The young pupils are driven here; the older ones arrive on foot. This morning no one mentions Saturday’s incident, the funeral and the shooting (cf. reports from October 24, 25 and 26).
07:40-08:20 Reihan checkpoint, seam zone side
Seven trucks emerge from the inspection area and nine (!) enter. Five more trucks wait on the road. Six cars wait at the vehicle checkpoint to cross to the West Bank.
One booth in the terminal is open, which is enough at this hour. Not many cross to the seam zone and few to the West Bank. Four detainees sit on a bench in the terminal.
07:50 Ali, a boy, had a successful bone marrow transplant, donated by his younger brother. Two weeks ago he went home from the hospital and today his mother is taking him to be examined at Rambam hospital. The father brought Ali and his mother to the Palestinian parking lot and thought we’d take them from there, but because I had a problem with my car we came with an Israeli Arab driver. The security guard, the person in charge, and the person in charge of him are very polite and want to help. Our driver isn’t allowed to drive his car to the Palestinian side of the checkpoint. Hundreds of Israeli Arabs go through the Jalameh checkpoint in their cars, but not a single one through the Reihan-Barta’a checkpoint! Finally they found a solution: The senior person in charge permits Ali’s father, a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, to drive through the vehicle checkpoint in his car (!!!) without having to wait on line, and bring Ali and his mother to us.
08:20 The father returns to the Palestinian side and we drive to Rambam.
'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.
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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).
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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)
Mar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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