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‘Anin, Thu 6.12.07, Morning

Place: 'Anin checkpoint (214)
Tags: Slow passage
Observers: Sima S., Anna N. S.
Dec-06-2007
| Morning
06:00 A'anin CP  is open. Inspections are being carried out in the middle of the lot: two soldiers inspect and write the ID numbers of those leaving on the back of the car; they check everything in the plastic bags; spreading out the belongings of the people who are going through. A third soldier oversees this from a concrete post with his rifle drawn in the direction of those going through the CP. The first to go out  return shivering from the cold; they say that 50 people are waiting at the bottom. Among them there are people on tractors and on donkeys. One man tells us about the nightly patrols of military vehicles in A'anin. "They are following our movements", he says. He tells us that he is not  allowed to work on his land which is near the fence and the network road. He is forbidden to do this over and over again. As if it is not enough that these superfluous roads cut off part of his land, he is not allowed to work the land that is left.
 
07:00 – About 20 people are still waiting to go through (we did not see any women), the soldiers affirm that they will let them all through. Then we leave.

07:10 Shaked-Tura CP. There are soldiers at the deserted military base. The overflowing garbage cans are proof as well.

At the CP, operations  go on as usual. A taxi halted at the entrance; passengers get out of it. They are waiting. There is a thorough inspection of the vehicle in every corner — about 10 minutes. Inspection of the documents — the vehicle is noted, and the people go through. Pupils arrive running toward the soldiers with their schoolbags open on their chests. On the opposite side, those going to the seamline zone are waiting. The adults go through the inspection pavilion. Everything is 'routine' and depressing.

07:15 Reihan-Barta'a CP. The drivers claim that the CP was opened at 05:30 and they estimate that about 100 people have gone through so far, some were delayed in the rooms and some went through 'smoothly'. The garden is glorious with beautiful flowers and plants. On the Palestinian side ('the backyard'), on the other hand, there are no toilets. They have not yet decided  whose responsiblity it is to erect them and in the meantime, people urinate at the side. About ten pickup trucks with their goods are waiting. The inspection begins in the big white tent which was put up in the vehicle CP to enable inspection when it rains. Four vehicles are being inspected at the same time; all the doors are open; the drivers are waiting at the side.

We are told that at the Dothan / Ameriha CP, 'everything is fine'. All of the people go through without permits and without records of their names — and the skies have not fallen. People tell us about the nightly patrols of the army in Yaabed. They argue about whether anybody was or was not arrested yesterday in his home. A resident of Umm Reihan complains that even though all the papers for arranging the electricity supply to the villages in the seamline zone are in order. electricity   is still not supplied  to the houses and therefore the people in the village are forced to buy fuel at an exorbitant price in Barta'a. The fact that we stubbornly insist on standing near the yellow gate so that we can observe what is happening in the vehicle CP and in the entrance and exit of the pedestrian passageway led to the closing of the CP for all Palestinian vehicles and it was not opened until we left. When we stood on the path leading to the terminal, a soldier in the observation tower yelled at us, saying that we are not allowed to be there.

09:30 The four pickup trucks that entered the inspection compound at 08:47 have not yet emerged.

We left.

  • '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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