‘Azzun ‘Atma, Sun 6.12.09, Morning
'Azzun 'Atma
08:30
How depressing! About 30-40 people are still crowded into the line to cross. Five smug soldiers face them. We talk with laborers who came through and are waiting for their rides to work. They paint a depressing portrait: for two weeks, since the new group of soldiers arrived (a rescue unit from the Home Front command), they’re being treated arbitrarily, abused (“like animals").
The contractor doesn’t want a worker who can start only at 10:00. Some of the laborers already waited on line at the eastern entrance to the village (“down there”), only to wait again at this exit.
They describe the behavior of the soldiers at the entrance to the village, their humiliating treatment of women who are forced to crowd together in line with dozens of men, their crudeness. One man said they should change the name of the crossing to “the gate of death” (someone told us about a funeral in the village on Saturday, when people coming from elsewhere had trouble getting into the village).
Another man, despairing, who works in a factory, says that it should begin operating at 06:30, but doesn’t open until he arrives. “But this can’t go on. It has to end,” he says.
Someone else bitterly tells us about the room with the scanner, which they believe causes cancer, and describes how many people have gotten cancer as a result. Even though this belief is probably baseless, isn’t there any way or need to reassure the Palestinians about this issue?
'Azzun 'Atma
See all reports for this place-
'Azzun 'Atma
A Palestinian village of about 1,800 residents. The settlement of Sha'arei Tikva was established on its land adjacent to it, and the settlement of Oranit was established on its agricultural lands. By 2013, the separation fence had passed through the village and a checkpoint staffed by the army allowed the residents to cross from side to side. After building a massive wall surrounding the village and some of its agricultural lands, the residents went daily for five years to their lands that remained in the Seam Zone through the Oranit agricultural checkpoint (4). Since 2018 it has only opened during the olive harvest and the farmers have to pass daily at the Beit Amin / Abu Salman checkpoint (1447), about 3 kilometers north.From a report from March 24, 2021: "The farmers from Beit Amin and Azon Atma are happy that since February 21 the Oranit checkpoint .is going to be open 3 times a day, The farmers are really developing the place."
Report from July 14, 2024: "Ornit checkpoint is closed . The Beit Amin/Abu Salman agricultural checkpoint is closed (there is no contact with the military to check if it opens rarely), the Ezbat Jaloud checkpoint was opened once a day before the war.
Updated for July 2024
Apr-11-2019Azoun: The main entrance to village blocked now for several weeks
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