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Irtah (Sha’ar Efrayim), Mon 3.8.09, Morning
Place:
Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)
Observers: Ziona O. (reporting) Smadar (writing)
Translator: Orna B.
04:00 Irtach
04:00 Irtach
We reached the checkpoint.
04:31 The turnstiles are still closed.
04:35 The turnstiles open. Thousands of workers go in slowly. They bemoan the fact that today it is the Russian guard at the entrance. He shouts all the time and delays them. In sheer contrast to the Russian there is a guard of French origin, who is always in an excellent mood, greets the workers and treats them as well as possible. But sadly not everyday the French is posted at the entrance.
05:25 We went up to the exit. A worker approached us with a friend acting as a translator. He told us his name was Riyad and that he has a daughter, 11, who is in a wheelchair. One day she had returned home from school, fainted and stopped functioning. Now she is attached to a catheter , she does not talk and sleeps the whole time. Tomorrow at 08:00 they have an appointment at the Schneider Hospital for tests. He was worried how he was going to be able to go with her through the carousel. We agreed to meet him tomorrow at 05:00 at the entrance so that we can help him go through if necessary. Ziona will go with them to the Schneider where she works.
05:50 We went back to the entrance and luckily the French guard was there. I yelled to him across the fence and he listened and promised to help Riyad tomorrow to go through the humanitarian gate.
04:35 The turnstiles open. Thousands of workers go in slowly. They bemoan the fact that today it is the Russian guard at the entrance. He shouts all the time and delays them. In sheer contrast to the Russian there is a guard of French origin, who is always in an excellent mood, greets the workers and treats them as well as possible. But sadly not everyday the French is posted at the entrance.
05:25 We went up to the exit. A worker approached us with a friend acting as a translator. He told us his name was Riyad and that he has a daughter, 11, who is in a wheelchair. One day she had returned home from school, fainted and stopped functioning. Now she is attached to a catheter , she does not talk and sleeps the whole time. Tomorrow at 08:00 they have an appointment at the Schneider Hospital for tests. He was worried how he was going to be able to go with her through the carousel. We agreed to meet him tomorrow at 05:00 at the entrance so that we can help him go through if necessary. Ziona will go with them to the Schneider where she works.
05:50 We went back to the entrance and luckily the French guard was there. I yelled to him across the fence and he listened and promised to help Riyad tomorrow to go through the humanitarian gate.
We left at 06:30; the workers' entrance was running smoothly.
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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