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Jalama, Reihan, Shaked, Tue 11.8.09, Morning

Place: Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Jalama Tura-Shaked
Tags: Slow passage
Observers: Neta J., Hassida S. (reporting)
Aug-11-2009
| Morning
 

05:50 Reihan CP

When we came, many Palestinian workers were already sitting in the upper parking lot and waiting for the rides of their employers.
The CP opened on time and the passage is steady. One worker (B. from the rug plant in Shahak) complains about the last few days. Every morning the inspection inside the terminal halts from a quarter to six until six thirty. Later, we asked the person in charge of the CP, S., about this and he claimed that it is not true.) One worker praises three of the workers in the terminal who apparently work there every morning. He said that when these three are here – everything is fine. (Apparently because they are experienced and skilled.)
Seamstresses were already waiting above, while some of them are still arriving in the lower parking lot in A.'s car. We went down. The workers arrive, enter in fives. The voice from the loudspeaker sounds pleasant and courteous.
 
One truck is waiting for inspection. Later a few more trucks arrive. Inspection of the cars takes a long time. Both the commercial trucks and the private vehicles hand over documents for inspection at one point, and afterwards go up to the fenced compound for a thorough inspection.
 
We saw a private car that let a woman and a child out at the terminal while he, with another three children, approached the car queue, handed over his ID card and waited quite a long time until he was called to go up to the inspection pavilion above. When we went up, at about 06.40, we saw the mother and child waiting, the father, the car and the rest of the children were being inspected.
 
06.55 Shaked CP
The gate is open already, but there are still no (CP) workers. Near the turnstile, about 30 people are waiting to enter the inspection room; a few cars are waiting on the Palestinian side. There is also a herd of sheep waiting. For some reason, everything is proceeding very slowly today. The first people to be inspected come out after about ten minutes. A few women on our side are waiting to enter for inspection. The owner of the sheep  comes out after inspection, frees the donkey and takes the herd out. A few more people come out after inspection, but everything is very slow — drop by drop.
 
We left for Jalameh to take little Aya and her mother to Rambam. At Jalameh, a man asked us for information about the possibility of getting treatment in Rambam for a boy who had an operation on his head in Jordan.

  • 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).

  • Jalama

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    • North of Jenin, on the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank. A big terminal for the passage of Palestinians with permits allowing entrance into Israel and goods into Israel operates there. In the course of 2009 the terminal was opened for the passage of Israeli Arabic citizens into the West Bank. Since October 2009 they may pass in their cars.

  • 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)
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      Mar-21-2022
      Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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