Reihan, Shaked, Mon 20.7.09, Morning
Leah R, Anna NS
Today is the beginning of the festival of el Ashura, and we are told that all official institutions in Palestine will be closed for a couple of days.
The checkpoint is open. There are relatively many soldiers compared to the number of transients: 15-20 men, among them tractor owners. One man relates that his 14 year old son was not allowed cross the checkpoint with him, even though he had a birth certificate and was included in the father’s identity card. While talking on the phone with DCO chief Aadel and the father, 10 more boys were sent home, all between 12-16.
The checkpoint opened at 05:00. On the way we meet workers who have already passed the checking station and are waiting for transport to work. A few drivers are waiting since official (yellow) taxis have taken the place of private vehicles in long journeys.
Checks of merchandise begin around 05:00, five pickups at a time. At the moment two are waiting. They tell us that in recent days Amriha Checkpoint has been opened late, delaying all the workers who have to reach Reihan in order to go to work in time.
Most traffic is flowing at this hour, mostly to the Seam Zone, but even that is thin. Private cars convert themselves to taxis and take people to Seam Zone communities. A courteous soldier, apparently in charge, comes over to us for a short conversation. He tells us that around 50 men and women crossed this morning to the Seam Zone, and that treatment of transients will shortly pass to the Military Police while the checkpoint soldiers will guard them.
Local residents tell us (again) that there are Palestinian communities in the Seam Zone that still are not connected to electricity, alongside settlements in the area. At Dahar el-Malch the owners of one house wait for 10:00, when they can turn the generator on and continue building the wall around their courtyard. They tell us about refrigerators that don’t work and food that spoils, and other burdens. They are afraid to take initiative for fear of harm to the little already achieved, and have hired a lawyer to fight their cases, not always successfully.
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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