Northern Checkpoints: The Occupation ticks itself along
6:00 Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
At the upper car-park, where Palestinian workers board their transports to work in Barta’a and in Israel, the morning hubbub has yet to begin. It’s quiet now.
The lower car-park, entrance to the Palestinian side of the checkpoint, is still rather empty. We watch people being swallowed into the new crossing installation (immediately reminiscent of a cattle corral) from where they will cross four turnstiles into the terminal. Passage is swift. Since this installation has been opened we have not heard of congestions in either direction. The morning riots at this checkpoint are apparently a thing of the past. Yes, the Occupation has become more efficient, ticking itself along. Let’s just not forget that the more efficient it gets, the worse it is both for Palestinians and for Jews.
6:35 Agricultural checkpoint Aneen
This checkpoint looks completely deserted although it is opening time. The gate on our side is wide open, no sign of soldiers nor of the DCO vehicle, except for donkeys freely coming and going. A group of Aneen villagers is waiting down the road. No one answered the phone at the DCO all morning. At the brigade HQ a polite woman-soldier said “we’re not opening because of the rain”. Never mind that not a single drop of rain fell in the last few days, and until the writing of these lines a day later. The soldier also said that “people were notified, they know” about not opening the agricultural checkpoints of Aneen and Tayibe-Roumana. With the help of a Palestinian friend we discovered that the Palestinian DCO received this notice from the Israelis and passed it on to the local councils, but these did not update the villagers, on their Facebook pages for instance, and people came to the checkpoint in vain. The olive harvest itself is already over, there were simply not too many olives this year.
The next morning (today) we had a phone call from Tayibe-Roumana Checkpoint. Where’s the army? Why is it closed? Why we were not notified? We suggested they call their local council and find out where the information got stuck along the way.
7:05 Toura-Shaked Checkpoint
Few people exit the checkpoint towards the seam-line zone. Few students have already arrived to cross over to the other side, to go to their school in the Palestinian village of Toura. They say there’s a detained person at the checkpoint, a youngster who has no idea what he did wrong, and what he’s being held up for.
7:45 Yaabad Dotan Checkpoint
Traffic flows east- and west-ward. The pillbox appears empty.
8 a.m.: a small espresso at the Amriha grocery shop, with the owner, to the sound of Quran verses from the TV on the wall. Short moments of illusion that peace is already here…
'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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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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