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Reihan, Thu 2.4.09, Morning

Place: Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
Observers: Anna N.S., Neta J. (reporting)
Apr-02-2009
| Morning

Translation: Devorah K.

5:05 Reihan-Barta'a CP 
There is a heavy fog on the road that leads from Wadi Ara to the CP. In the valley where the Reihan-Barta'a CP is located, the fog is especially heavy. The security guard who opens the vehicle CP for us on our way to the Palestinian parking lot, says that it is not secure and not safe to travel on such a morning. The first three workers have already been inspected in the terminal, which opened at 05:00, and they are walking up the sleeve. Only one vehicle is waiting for them at this hour. The yellow vehicle CP was opened for us. There are only a few drivers in the parking lot and about twenty people are waiting to enter the terminal Two loaded pickup trucks are already waiting for inspection. Workers and seamstresses keep arriving, getting out of the vehicles they rode in ten at a time. It seems that fewer people than usual are arriving, perhaps because of the heavy fog and perhaps because there are very few permits.

05:55 – the fog begins to disperse. Two cars are inspected on their way to the seamline zone and three additional cars are waiting. We can hear dogs barking.

 
06:05 A'anin CP
The gates are open. There is a lot of traffic – military vehicles and police cars – on the security road between the fences and also on the road that leads to the CP. On one of the police cars there is a torn Israeli flag.
Plastic junk, that was not allowed to be taken to A'anin, is lying in the shade of the olive trees between the mustard grass and the buttercups.

06:10 The first farmer goes through. Only about fifteen people are waiting, among them a woman and a child, three people with tractors and one with a donkey. People complain that their permits are not renewed on time, and they are sent back and forth between the Palestinian DCO in Jenin and the Israeli DCO in Salem. One man tells us about a new kind of harrassment: The DCO representative came to the CP on Monday with a map showing blocs and lots, and demanded that people identify their own lots on the map. Many do not remember the number of the bloc and the lot (we don't remember the numbers of the bloc and the lot of our houses either), and many do not know how to read a map. The man told us that the mayor coped with this demand very wisely; he said he was willing, via the loudspeaker of the mosque, to call all the people in the village to come to the CP and go with the representative of the DCO to identity their lots on the ground. That was the end of the matter. For the time being.

06:30 The soldiers close the lower gate of the CP, the one facing A'anin.

06:45 All the people have gone through.

 
06:55 Shaked-Tura CP

The gate on the side of the seamline zone is already open. They open the gate on the side of the West Bank at 7:00 on the dot. Five minutes later, three pupils arrive and go through the inspection pavilion. There is relatively a lot of steady traffic toward this CP, in both directions. All the pupils are required to go through the inspection pavilion, even the five year old kindergartners. Two little girls go up to the gate and are sent back home. A father accompanies his two children, aged about five and six, and does not want to go through the pavilion. The soldier sends the father to the DCO representative. The children are forced to go through the inspection pavilion. They are so little. The cannot open the steel door of the pavilion. A soldier approaches them and opens the door for them. Let's not forget: they are going from the seamline zone to school on the West Bank!

07:40 The (elegant) teacher who teaches on the West Bank, arrives in his beaten up car, fearful that he will be late to school. His friends have consideration for him and let him go ahead of two cars that were already there when he came.

08:00 At this time a few people are waiting in front of the pavilion on the side of the West Bank. There is practically no traffic.
 
08:40 Jalameh CP
The parking lot is full of cars that belong to Arab citizens of Israel going through the terminal to the West Bank. The workers have already gone through and there are no buses with prisoners' families. We take the toddler Aya and her mother for the daily dialysis at Rambam Hospital.

  • Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint

    See all reports for this place

    • 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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