Barta'a-Reihan
06:00 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
Many workers already crossed the checkpoint. Transport vehicles fill the entire area. The guard at the mounted vehicle crossing stand doesn’t know the exact details about the expected closure during Passover. We park in the Palestinian side of the parking lot. There is no line. The turnstile is locked only at the hour that the army vehicle passes on the system’s road and then a short line is created at certain moments. We meet A., through whose credit this checkpoint passage is tolerable (sorry for the expression). He tells us that inside the terminal they installed an additional machine to inspect objects and at the last station, there are six or seven stations that are functioning.
It is our intention to arrive for the opening of Tura Checkpoint (06:30), but we are asked by someone to give a ride to his wife, who already passed through the checkpoint. She is on her way to their daughter who is supposed to have an operation today in Sheba Hospital. Her husband passes his wife a large purse with supplies and food and then it is clear that she missed the ride with “On the Way to Recovery.” We take her to the bus station at Wadi Ara, opposite Umm el-Fahm. The bus arrives immediately and the driver, who speaks Arabic, picks her up and promises to take her to board the bus to Sheba Hospital. And thus we ended this time, our shift.
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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