Reihan, Shaked, Sun 25.9.11, Morning
Translation: Bracha B.A.
06:00 – Reihan-Barta'a Checkpoint
Workers are waiting for their rides and trucks are waiting to be checked. The Palestinian parking lot is filing up. We drove to the Mevo Dotan Checkpoint. It is unmanned but the lights are on. We walked around in the village of Emricha and gave people bags of second-hand clothing. We returned to Reihan-Barta'a where workers were entering the terminal and coming out the other side within five minutes to meet their rides to work in the seamline zone.
07:00 – Shaked-Tura Checkpoint
The front gate is open and the rear gate is just opening. The school principal is waiting his turn to be checked. An earlier regulation has been re-introduced, and now drivers must leave their cars behind the concrete barrier and walk to the inspection booth.
The owner of an olive grove in the seamline zone has worked for years in Israel and has also served as the head of his local regional council. He has difficulty walking and he complains that he has not received a permit to drive through the checkpoint despite the fact that his brother did receive such a permit. When we tried to clarify this at the Liaison and Coordination Administration they reported that he should approach the Palestinian contact. He attempted to approach them numerous times and has not succeeded.
Y. arrives in his car filled with happy, well-dressed schoolchildren. At our request, an officer at the checkpoint allowed a handicapped person sitting next to the driver, on his way to the West Bank, to be checked while sitting in the car rather than walk. We thanked him for his consideration. "We do take people's needs into consideration," he replied. We told him that not everyone does… He continued to talk to us across the fence, from a distance, and suggested that we come and talk to soldiers, but the discussion was interrupted, so we told him to visit the website and contact Machsom Watch.
At 08:00 we heard marching music coming over the loudspeaker like the music we heard in Emricha. This time it was coming from the school in Tura.
On our way from the checkpoint we met a worker who was returning home because he had received a cut on his thigh from the barbed wire that was stretched from the gate of the checkpoint to make the road narrower.
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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