Northern checkpoints, Tura: open late almost as usual
05:45 – 07:30
05:45 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
In the upper parking lot, the new, large shelter is lit with expensive lighting, but no one sits in it. The platform, which, at this hour, should be filled with people passing through, is empty. Transit drivers from Barta’a, wait for passengers and talk to each other calmly. “There aren’t many passengers,” they tell us. The coffee vendor, who was “banished” from the parking lot to the junction of Barta’a, also has no customers.
Workers go up from the terminal at a slow pace. Some of them travel using the transits from Barta’a, and some travel with their employers to Israel and to the Seamline Zone.
They have not renewed the permits which would allow workers to leave for work in the morning from Barta’a Checkpoint. Also, after 06:00, the rate of those leaving the checkpoint for work in Israel doesn’t change.
06:30 – Tura-Shaked Checkpoint
This is the hour that the checkpoint is supposed to be opened, but the checkpoint is locked and empty. In the nearby settlement of Shaked, there are hammer blows and the new buildings being constructed there are approaching the checkpoint. In about ten minutes, an industrious student arrives, whom we always meet when he passes through to high school in Jenin; he is almost always late. He tells us that last Friday, they didn’t open the checkpoint. Only at 12:00, they opened the gate for an hour and a half, to allow students, who are seniors in high school, to pass through. On Fridays, they have special lessons. We hear bitter voices from the West Bank side, about the lateness in opening.
At 06:55, I tried to call the District Coordination Office (DCO) to find out why they are late in opening, but no one answers. At 07:00, we hear bitter voices from the West Bank side, about the delay and lateness in opening.
At last, at 07:10, the soldiers arrive. Together with them, other students of the school in Jenin arrive, along with a nurse and her son.
The passage of the workers, students and vehicles in both directions, begins at 07:20—a delay of 40 minutes!
At 07:20, junior high school girls begin to arrive and they pass through quickly with no inspection.
Barta'a (old agricultural gate)
See all reports for this place-
Barta'a (old agricultural gate)
On the road from Barta'a to the West Bank.
-
Tura-Shaked
See all reports for this place-
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
-