Brta`a checkpoint: "Our mall"
15:00 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
We arrived before the rush hour so we decided to continue to Harish and Ya’bed Checkpoints without stopping at Barta’a Checkpoiont. We would stop there on the way back.
Hermesh Checkpoint
There are no soldiers in the guard tower and the traffic flows without interruption. Large trucks loaded with construction material cross at Harmish and continue in the direction of Ya’bed.
Ya’bed Checkpoint
Soldiers in the guard tower yell something at us, but we couldn’t understand what or why they were yelling. A group of officers come down from the tower, they enter an army vehicle and travel away from there.
Smiling Palestinians crossing the checkpoint waive hello to us.
We see a new electrical box that obviously accounts for the new lighting that we recognized on the road.
16:00 – Barta’a Checkpoint
A stream of workers and cars leaving from the Palestinian side is very large. This appears to be the peak hour. The coffee sellers are also busy working.
At the turnstile exit, they set up a small building, where, in only a few days, they will open a kiosk. The Locals call it “our mall” in ridicule. Perhaps the request for a shed for those who pass through the checkpoint will also be carried out.
16:30 – Tura Checkpoint
Quiet as usual and dirty as usual at this checkpoint. A few women cross, try to speak with us, and again we feel the need to know and study Arabic. A man who crosses to the Palestinian side tells us the fact that every morning that they delay in opening the checkpoint, disrupts their day. To us it looks like another purposeful impediment.
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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