Irtah (Sha’ar Efrayim), Mon 14.12.09, Afternoon
16:20 – Few workers go fast through the turnstile. Buses start coming in and soon there are tens of people in the line. Everything flows smoothly at first with four open inspection posts. At 16:30 the turnstile stops and the inner doors close/ when they open a few minutes later, only two inspection posts are active and the line soon gets very long.
Ten people have left for Israel and it seems to us that they are the reason for the delay since we haven't seen any people coming out to go back home. We assume that those who do the checking are busy with the people who leave for Israel.
We call the DCO [District Coordination Office of the IDF Civil Administration that handles Passage permits] asking for their intervention in order to expedite the checking by sending in additional checkers. However, we haven't seen any improvement.
They block our field of vision by shutting one of the doors, so we can neither see nor take pictures of the posts.
16:50 – Workers arrive in small cars. Buses no longer arrive and the line gets shorter.
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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