Irtah (Sha’ar Efrayim)
Irtah, Efrayim gate, Friday, 13.12.13, dawn
Irtah/Sha'ar Efraiym, dwan
A rainy, stormy dawn – but a leisurely one.
05:01 We reach the separation fence – the checkpoint is open. Everyone arriving enters immediately. There are no lines in the fenced corridors. People run across the open area from the turnstile to the scanner facility, covering up with anything they can. The rain is heavy, driven by the wind. We notice a few women.
05:10 On our way to the exit the duty guard who’s freezing tries to understand what we’re doing here at this still-desolate hour…
No one had yet come through when we arrived. The first exited at 05:18. We tried to find out where the few working today were employed: cleaning staff on the 06:00-14:00 shift. And, to our surprise – agricultural workers, primarily in strawberries fields including women. One touches my coat, says “It’s a good coat.” When we ask whether they don’t have a day off because of the rain, they say: If we don’t work we don’t get paid. One says: What are we – Jews? There’s no paid vacation.
05:35 We left. It was quiet, calm, cold and very miserable.
Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)
See all reports for this place-
The checkpoint is for Palestinians only. It is the main barrier to the passage of workers from the northern West Bank to Israel. Workers with a permit to work in Israel and also for trade (with appropriate permissions), medicine, and visiting prisoners. One can cross the checkpoint only on foot. The checkpoint is located north of Road 557 and south of Tulkarm. Operated by a civil security company, opening hours: between 4:00 and 19:00 on weekdays. As members of Machsom Watch, we began our shifts to this location in 2007. We arrived before it opened at 4 in the morning and report since, on the harsh conditions and the long and crowded queues of workers. The workers who pass by continue their journey by transportation to work throughout Israel. In the first period of its activity, about 3,000 and then 5,000 people passed through this checkpoint every day. Due to the small number of checking points and arbitrary delays for long periods of time in the "rooms", workers feared losing their transportation. Hence workers leave their homes at 2:30 at night to be among the first. Today, 15,000 pass and the transition is faster. Workers are still leaving their homes very early to get past the checkpoint at 7 p.m. In an adjacent compound, there is a terminal for the transfer of goods on a commercial scale, using the back-to-back method.
-