Irtah (Sha’ar Efrayim)
Rainy and empty.
4:02. We arrive. Groups of people have already passed through the checkpoint. The gates opened before 4:00. The parking lot has been surfaced, but it isn't open yet and the road is badly jammed.
By the separation fence: there is no line waiting. People walk in as soon as they arrive. Some progress is visible at the new entering facility site.
By the turnstile leading into Israel: the flow of traffic is smooth. People say that today was okay, except for one angry man. He’s elderly, says he's been working in Israel for thirty years. Today he happened to be routed through a room instead of a magnetometer.
He says that an employee young enough to be his daughter harassed him, shouting take off your shoes! What do you have in the bag of documents? Take everything out! He says, can't she speak politely to her elders? And what could be hidden in an ID card, which she didn’t even look at? He says he told her that her attitude causes anger and hate–she said she doesn't care, she just wants to put in her hours and go home.
He also said that when we observe from the outside, we can't see the attitude of some of the employees. Some of them take time to chat with each other or talk on their phones, while people are waiting and not daring to criticize their behavior.
4:25 We leave.
Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)
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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.
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