Barta’a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked, Ya’bed-Dotan, Tue 11.6.13, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
06:00 Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint
A line of pickup trucks wait on the road for their merchandise to be inspected. Laborers from the West Bank emerge from taxis and are swallowed up in the terminal. They go through quickly.
Workers from the Shahak plant sit by the roadside waiting for their co-workers and their transportation to work. They complain about conditions in the factories: oppressive heat, no fans or air conditioning. They work until 17:30.
200 seamstresses crossed to East Barta’a.
The toilets at the entrance to the fenced corridor are disgusting; it’s unlikely anyone from the occupation regime has been there recently. Again we hear complaints that the checkpoint opens too late (07:00) on Friday, a short workday.
06:30 Ya’abed-Dothan checkpoint
A blue Star of David decorated with lights rises on a pole on a hill opposite Zebda to light the night for travelers. Green tobacco fields along the road, with many people working in them. A pastoral scene that only heightens the wretchedness of the homes belonging to the residents of Amrikha. The road up to Ya’abed is blocked by a yellow metal bar, forcing the residents to make a long detour as they leave heading south and east. The Ya’abed checkpoint isn’t manned; the road to Jenin is open. The soldiers will arrive at 08:00.
07:10 Tura-Shaked checkpoint
Soldiers are there but the checkpoint is still locked.
07:15 Two students hurry to the university in Jenin. The fenced corridor is locked; the female soldier doesn’t allow them or the driver in the vehicle parked next to the checkpoint to go through..
A man laden with packages comes through the fenced corridor from the West Bank. The soldier comes to open it, 15 minutes late. S. says he’d returned one day from his land 15 minutes after the checkpoint was to close (19:15). The soldiers let him through. The next day he wanted to go through the checkpoint to the seam zone but they hadn’t recorded his return the previous evening so he was considered to have slept in the seam zone. His explanations and pleas didn’t avail; he was forced to go to the Salem DCO and obtain a new permit to reach his lands, which are trapped in the seam zone! And until he received it he had enough time to reflect who’s allowed to be late and who isn’t in this painful land.
Today the crossing goes annoyingly slowly. “The soldier’s sleeping,” they say.
08:15 We left.
Point of order: The pedestrian crossing markings at the entrance to the checkpoint are completely faded…Isn’t it time to repaint them?
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)
Ruti TuvalMar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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Ya'bed-Dotan
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Ya’bed-Dotan
This checkpoint is located on road 585, at the crossroads of Mevo Dotan settler-colony / Jenin/ Ya’abad. It has an army watchtower (‘pillbox’ post) and concrete blocs that slow down vehicular traffic. It was erected when Barta’a Checkpoint, lying to the west on the Separation Fence, was privatized and its operation was passed over to civilian security personnel. Since December 2009 this checkpoint enables flow of Palestinian vehicular traffic towards the Barta’a Checkpoint. Seldom is it manned by soldiers sitting in the watchtower, who conduct random inspections of vehicles and passengers. (february 2020)
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