Northern checkpoints: More breaches in the separation fence than checkpoints
15:10 – 16:30
15:10 – Anin Checkpoint
We didn’t know what time the checkpoint opened so we decided to pass it twice. A., whose olive grove is next to the checkpoint, wasn’t there so we assumed that the harvest was already over. M., an acquaintance of ours, who is about the only one to pass through the checkpoint with a tractor, didn’t go to work today because his son is getting married. A car from Umm Reihan arrives, and its passengers get out and go to the wedding via the breach in the fence.
15:30 – Road 611, at the breach next to the village of Luxor
Several cars stop on the sides of the road; workers get out and cross via the breach in the fence to the parking lot in the village. We see people leave the village and go to cars that wait for them. The large pile of scattered garbage next to the area of the parking lot attests to the degree to which the breach is used.
The army “worries” that the vehicles will be able to cross the breach and set up mounds of stones there.
15:50 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
Many workers arrive from work via transportation provided by the contractors and go down the sleeve (the enclosed passage for pedestrians to and from the terminal). The kiosk is open, and the worker there tells us that in the mornings now, not as many workers pass through the checkpoint as in the past. “Everyone goes out via the breaches in the fence.” But most of those returning home pass through the checkpoint. Residents of Barta’a who return from Jenin cross via the vehicle checkpoint. We hope that the in the winter, the checkpoint will also open the terminal in the afternoon so that the Barta’a crossing will be protected from wind and rain.
16:10 – A growing stream of workers return to the West Bank.
16:15 – Tura-Shaked Checkpoint
Israeli cars arrive with about 20 workers from Israel and the Seamline Zone. Some pass through the checkpoint and some turn to the path that goes around the checkpoint. They tell us that this morning, the checkpoint was opened on time.
Palestinian cars cross in two directions.
Return to Anin Checkpoint
A father and his small son along with several workers arrive at the breached “checkpoint” and pass through. The army has no memory of this.
'Anin checkpoint (214)
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'Anin checkpoint (214)
'Anin checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence east of the Israeli community Mei Ami and close to the village of Anin in the West Bank. It is opened twice a week, morning and afternoon, on days with shorter light time, for Anin farmers whose olive groves have been separated from the village by the fence it became difficult to cultivate their land. Transit permits are only issued to those who can produce ownership documents for their caged-in land, and sometimes only to the head of the family or his widow, eldest son, and children. Sometimes the inheritors lose their right to tend to the family’s land. The permits are eked out and are re-issued only with difficulty. 55-year-old persons may cross the checkpoint (into Israel) without special permits. During the olive harvest season (about one month around October) the checkpoint is open daily and more transit permits are issued. Names of persons eligible to cross are held in the soldiers’ computers. In July 2007, a sweeping instruction was issued, stating that whoever does not return to the village through this checkpoint in the afternoon will be stripped of his transit permit when he shows up there next time. Since 2019, the checkpoint has not been allways locked with the seam-line zone gate (1 of 3 gates), and the fence around it has been broken in several sites.
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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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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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