Reihan, Shaked, Sun 6.12.09, Morning
Translation: Bracha B.A.
Reihan-Barta’a Checkpoint
Workers are waiting for their rides in the upper parking lot. It is beginning to rain. A few people are coming out of the terminal. A woman that we saw entering the terminal came out within 10 minutes. We hear the low voice of a woman in the area of the turnstile amplified by the speaker, “Ruhi l’Salem! At lo overet!” (Go to Salem! You can’t go through!) and then, “Ofer, I sent Nafsa back – is she a seamstress? Then should I let her through, Ofer?” Finally Nafsa goes through, but only today. Tomorrow she will have to go to the Liaison and Coordination Administration at Salem to arrange the matter of the biometric machine which would not read her palm print.
The machine malfunctions every now and then, causing many workers to have to go to Salem, wasting work hours and expensive travel, and it appears that there is no hurry to repair it. The manager of the sewing factory in Barta’a reports to us a conversation that he had with one of the managers: Today they will let all the seamstresses through, but tomorrow anyone who hasn’t been identified today will have to make the effort and go to Salem. The head of the Liaison and Coordination Administration at Salem, Lieutenant Colonel Adel, claims that the problem has already been fixed and promises to help overcome it this time as well.
The lower parking lot is almost empty. A few cars are parked there and whoever arrives (either in A.’s car or on foot) enters immediately, unless an army vehicle is crossing the checkpoint on the cement road at that moment. In that case there is a long process of opening and closing electric gates and people waiting at the entry gate to the terminal are not protected from the rain.
At 06:40 a taxi arrives with passengers on their way to the West Bank. At 06:50 we left and the taxi was still at the gate, its passengers waiting outside.
07:00 Shaked Tura Checkpoint
The gates are open but passage has not yet begun. Two cars are waiting on the seamline zone side and there are relatively few people on the West Bank side and a few cars. This morning there are no flocks of livestock. Three people are going towards the inspection facility – a banker who is extremely well-dressed, a high school student – the daughter of the school principal in Yaabed who is studying for her matriculation – and another young man. The school principal is waiting to be called for inspection with his old car. There is some delay and it is not clear why. There are 17 classes in his school. He has to earn a living for a family of eight with a salary of NIS 3,500 [per month]. About 10 nine-year-old children go through without being checked. The principal goes through at 07:20.
We hurry to get to |Jalameh to pick up Aya for her treatment at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, but she has already been picked up by someone else.
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)
Ruti TuvalMar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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