Reihan, Shaked, Tue 22.7.08, Morning
Translation: Devorah K.
06:00 Reihan CP
About 30 workers are waiting for rides. The CP has opened at 05:00, the equipment is working, the traffic to the seamline zone is flowing and everybody is "happy". One person asks me to go down into the terminal through the sleeve, because a few women were admitted to the inspection room and have been there for a long time. As I start walking down, six women, who apparently were in that room, come out, but I did not hear any complaint from them. Some of the seamstresses have already gone off to Barta'a, and the rest are now coming out and will be able to go there imemdiately. Later, we timed one person from entrance to exit — about 10 minutes.
We went down to the Palestinian parking lot. A few drivers are napping in their cars. From time to time a taxi arrives and the passengers enter the terminal immediately, and sometimes there is a group of pedestrians from the yellow gate opposite Yaabed and they enter the terminal.
At 06:00 on the dot the first pickup trucks loaded with goods enter for inspection. By 07:15 not a single one is left. In the meantime, some others joined the four that were waiting in the parking lot.
We went over to observe from the bus stop. A truck is parked near the post at the entrance from the seamline zone to the West Bank. All the doors are open and the woman inspector spends a long time examining the engine, holding a mirror under the car and waiting for a long time for advice or help or for something else. The driver sits and waits in the garden, near the slide. This inspection took about half an hour. The drivers who were waiting patiently behind it went through afterwards with only their documents examined.
Opposite us, we observed the inspection of the private cars. In the sleeve the workers went through very quickly, but they knew well enough to tell us that it would take forty minutes for the yellow taxi in which they came to the CP to complete the inspection. And they were right. Three cars are standing still with all their doors open. The drivers are waiting in the shed. One man is inspecting all three. He goes from one to the other, examines the engine, the baggage compartment, goes away, then waits, returns, inspects the mirror, goes away, waits, returns. He wears a white glove, strokes the steering wheel, the mirror, the seats and the sides, and goes away again, and returns. We approached him to find out what was going on. Our impression was that the inspection was being slowed down on purpose. A security guard who appeared to be more senior than the subordinate inspectors explained to us belligerently that he cannot explain the reason for the long drawn out inspection. And after a telephone conversation, apparently with Sharon, who is in charge of the CP, he told us to ask at the DCO. We did not ask.
The CP usually opens at 07:00 and we thought that we would not see any traffic, because we got there late. The old man on the donkey passed us on the road. A few cars were waiting for workers on the side of the seamline zone. Near the turnstile we saw ten people waiting. Except for one delay of three minutes or more, the people left the x-ray area at intervals of one or two minutes. Cars going to the West Bank were inspected quickly. The security guard in the hut did not appear to be concerned, and his rifle wasn't drawn. A gate that was like "real life" — apparently a superfluous CP.
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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