North Bank checkpoints - overcrowding and commotion
06:35. – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
At 05:38 We received a video on WhatsApp that describes the crowding and the tumult in the passage shed. When we arrived, workers confirmed that there was chaos because the authorities returned to opening at 05:00 instead of at 04:00. We went down the sleeve (the enclosed passage to the terminal). Someone approached us and said with a smile, “Certainly they saw your cameras and they started the passage through the checkpoint now in an orderly way.
07:20 -Hermesh Checkpoint
It’s known that this checkpoint no longer functions. Only cement blocks slow down the cars racing through. A shepherd from the Turkameni tribe, who was beyond the abandoned guard tower, leads his goat herd next to the entrance to the settlement of Hermesh.
07:45 – Ya’bed- Dotan Checkpoint
There are no delays in the car traffic. Army trash is scattered without shame near the checkpoint. A soldier came down from the pillbox (guard tower), walked around among the cars, and finally informed us, “It is forbidden for you to park here. “This is a security junction.” We wandered around for a bit in the nearby fields. Okra seedlings are beginning to bloom.
08:35 – Tura-Shaked Cehckpoint
A medical corps ambulance is parked on the road system. Six soldiers descend the stairs from the guard tower. Three of them, respectable officers, walk in the direction of the ambulance. We ask, “What happened”? One of them “answers”: “Do you have good money from the Europeans”? We didn’t really get into the deeper meaning of the “answer,” whenAC the officers continued, “Tennis is a very nice sport, I suggest.” And finally: “I heard that (Amir) Hatzroni is single.” The officer then entered the vehicle self-satisfied and drove off. (Amir Hatzroni is thought to be controversial for what some consider his radical views.)
We were not able to calm down from these negative pearls of wisdom when a soldier appeared: “Do you remember me? You yelled at me when I ate here during Ramadan.” “Nu, and that helped me? I learned something. Did you learn something? “I asked. “Does it look like it to you?” he answered
09:30 – The man who made the video earlier this morning called and said that he was at the Checkpoint from 05:05 until 06:00. “Don’t ‘ask how many there were. It was like a war. Today and yesterday were very difficult. We did little work.”
T., a checkpoint employee, said that they open at 04:30. We told her that the workers complain about the crowding and chaos. She requested that we return to her later. Later, her new answer was that . . . “the opening hour was a governmental decision”. We asked, “Then what did the government decide?” She referred us to the Ministry of Defense’s Passage authority, “Ramim.” We wandered through Ramim’s site and found the telephone number of the “Reihan Passage,” which we’ve known for a long time.
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).
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Hermesh
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Hermesh
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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)
Mar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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Ya'bed-Dotan
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Ya’bed-Dotan
This checkpoint is located on road 585, at the crossroads of Mevo Dotan settler-colony / Jenin/ Ya’abad. It has an army watchtower (‘pillbox’ post) and concrete blocs that slow down vehicular traffic. It was erected when Barta’a Checkpoint, lying to the west on the Separation Fence, was privatized and its operation was passed over to civilian security personnel. Since December 2009 this checkpoint enables flow of Palestinian vehicular traffic towards the Barta’a Checkpoint. Seldom is it manned by soldiers sitting in the watchtower, who conduct random inspections of vehicles and passengers. (february 2020)
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