Reihan, Shaked, Sun 25.5.08, Morning

Place: Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint Tura-Shaked

Tags: Crowding Slow passage X-ray machine Youngsters and students

Observers: Yocheved J and Hanna H. (reporting)

May-25-2008

| Morning

Translation: Devorah K.

06:05 Reihan CP

The CP was opened at 05:45 and about twenty people have already come out to the upper parking lot. The pace is about 24 people in ten minutes (i.e., 144 per hour instead of 250 as was promised). Many people are standing in front of the main gate in the lower parking lot and there is a crowd at the entrance to the terminal. Inside the terminal the women and the men are standing in a single queue in front of the machine. The operation of the machine has not changed the pace of the transit, but it has changed the way things proceed inside the CP.

06:25 – There are shouts from the terminal and only one window is working at the exit, but that is not the only reason for the delay. All those who emerge from the terminal complain about the long queue in front of the machine and especially about the way the CP workers are treating them this morning. Their attitude is insulting and humiliating. One of the workers talked on the phone and stopped the queue completely while he talked. From time to time, when those going through apparently step over a white line, they are pushed back (onto the women) and the operation of the machine is stopped. One of those going through told us that after such treatment, they leave "embittered and united".

06:35 – Things have calmed down in the terminal but the pace has not changed. When we suggested to those going through that they should ask for their employers to intervene, they told us that the employers propose that they go through the Taibe CP instead of the one at Reihan.

06:40 – Just outside the main lower gate, there are still many people waiting. About ten people are also waiting at the entrance to the terminal building. Again, there is yelling inside the terminal. A resident of Daher el-Malek, who bought a new car and who, in principle, can go through with the car at the Shaked CP, tells us that he has already appealed to the DCO several times asking for a new vehicle permit, but he is given the runaround and keeps being told to come "tomorrow".

06:50 – 14 pickup trucks with goods are waiting in the lower parking lot.

07:05 Shaked CP

The CP was opened before 07:00 and the young pupils have already gone through. The workers going through from the West Bank to the seamline zone also go through quickly and they praise the soldiers. Going through takes a minute or two. The older pupils are already on their way to their examinations, and students who are also on their way to the West Bank go through quickly. Cars go through in both directions. The passage takes three minutes; and the herds of sheep also go through quickly.

At 07:35 all those waiting have already completed the passage to the seamline zone.

07:50 Reihan CP

All the workers have gone through to their work places and the CP is calm.

Five pickup trucks entered the closed compound for inspection at 07:00 and left for Barta'a at 08:30. Passenger cars are inspected at the vehicle CP in groups of four – 15 to 20 minutes for each group. Only a few people go through from the seamline zone to the West Bank – some of them go through the vehicle CP in the cars.

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).
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)
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  Mar-21-2022
  
  Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
  
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