Barta’a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked
Barta’a Checkpoint, 06:00
People come out of the terminal at a quick pace, 4 inspection windows are working, most of the workers are young people, aged 30+. In the upper parking lot, transportation vehicles are waiting to take them to work.
In the Palestinian parking lot there is a long line; about the same number of people enter the terminal while the same number arrive and join the line. That is way the line still long. I followed up on a man with a red lunch box and it took him 5 minutes from the time he joined the line until he crossed the terminal and left. Many trucks wait to be inspected in the truck parking lot or on the near by road.
I met a family – parents and a child about 6, whose arm was bandaged to the elbow after an operation. They were on their way to Tel HaShomer Hospital (Tel Aviv) and a vehicle in the upper parking lot was waiting to take them there.
Some of the workers stop to drink coffee at the kiosk on the way out of the terminal, in the “sleeve”. There are concrete benches and a table. The owner of the kiosk and his wife (settlers from Mevo Dotan) are there. Those sitting around the coffee table are contented. They joke around with the settlers… The atmosphere is relaxed; the Occupation is erased. “Life looks lovely!”
Tura-Shaked Checkpoint, 06:40
The checkpoint is open. On the side of Tura, the Palestinian village, about 25 people wait for the opening of the inspection booth. Around 07:00, the first person leaves the checkpoint. After him, people come one after another, among them also women, but the pace is slow. An impressive man says, “We are collecting money for soldiers so we can buy them a new computer…” and then he laughs.
Young pupils in uniforms enter and cross the checkpoint on their way to school. A small girl of 7 takes the hand of a youngster of about 4, who is holding a green helium balloon. Two little ones, who live in “isolated house” outside Tura, study not in the nearby Tura but in Umm Reihan. Now wait for an adult to pick them up. Workers leave for their olive plots, others leave to build in the settlement of Shaked.
The checkpoint is quiet, running at its usual pace. Even the garbage container is empty “as it should be.”
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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