Barta’a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked
The Routine of Life with the Checkpoints: If the soldiers are not too late, if they don’t yell and also if the computer works, then today “everything is OK.”
Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
05:55 – We arrive. In the parking lot, many who already passed through, wait for transportation. Everyone reports that everything is OK. A steady stream of workers come up from the terminal, to their work in the seamline zone and Israel. We go down to the entrance of the terminal from the Palestinian side. The parking lot is full of cars. The trucks that are laden with merchandise, wait for the start of the inspection. The private cars enter the inspection at the automobile checkpoint.
The line of those entering the terminal is very orderly. There is no pushing, the workers arrive and immediately stand in the line that moves all the time. O. is still there and watches over the orderliness with the help of two assistants who actually have nothing to do because everyone is satisfied and controls himself in line. O. told us that he arrives at 05:00 in the morning and stays until 07:00.
50-60 people pass each time the carousel is opened; after a very short break it is opened again.
Inside the installation itself, the inspections are quick and it is reported that it takes about 10 minutes from the entrances to the exit. Next to the kiosk of the settlers there is a line of Palestinian workers who wait for “coffee and a pastry.”
We leave and travel to the next checkpoint.
Tura-Shaked Checkpoint
06:55 – The representatives of the District Coordination Office (DCO) are already here. There are no soldiers.
07:05 – The soldiers arrive in a civilian minibus.
A car arrives with workers who are returning from their night shift at a carpet factory in the industrial area next to Shaked but the passage hasn’t yet begun. The soldiers chatter among themselves despite the fact that from two sides of the checkpoint people are waiting to pass in order to arrive at their work in time. Three cars arrive from the seamline zone in order to cross to the other side of the checkpoint. The drivers park their cars and enter by foot for the document inspection.
07:16 – Three of the drivers are checked and now they wait in the line of cars for the automobile inspection. Three of the teachers go out first and quickly enter the transportation that is waiting to take them to their place of work.
The computer works today and therefore the passage is quicker. The first cars go out, children arrive and pass to schools in Tura—without inspection.
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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