Telephone report: Who takes care of the olives of Aanin farmers
The Anin Agricultural Checkpoint is closed shut by a powerful fence that has totally disconnected the villagers from their own olive groves (hundreds of dunams) in the seam zone. When this checkpoint was active and opened twice a week, many young people holding valid transit permits passed it into the seam zone. This was a real bonus – they were not required to pay a steep price to pass through the distant Barta’a Checkpoint. Around May 2023 (several months after hundreds of breaches in the Separation Fence were discovered) the occupation authorities began to block also the Palestinian villages located in the West Bank’s north-west region with a gigantic wall. The Israeli authorities established that it was enough to approach olive trees only twice a year, during the harvest and on plowing days. The reason for this, apparently, was to prevent Palestinians who are not farmers from crossing over into the seam zone (and from there on to Israel-proper) and spare the fence-guarding soldiers extra work. It must be said that the Israeli army generously granted transit permits to those non-farming youngsters.
As October and the first rains are here – the olive harvest season is upon us. These days the farmers of Anin are waiting with extra concern to be permitted to pass into their own olive groves, caged behind the wall/fence inside the seam zone. The military has not yet approved and they’re afraid to press. It is clear to them that the state of war has changed the rules, and they can only hope that they will be allowed to harvest… This is their main source of livelihood, for self-consumption.
The crop this year is meager. “Perhaps 50%” says Mahmoud. “Only the trees close to home are harvested.”
I assume Mahmoud does not know exactly what has been happening around the Gaza Strip and in the southern part of Israel. They are connected only to the Al Jazeera station. I felt that he does not wish to be updated, either. But he reminds me lengthily that his son (a PA policeman) was killed by drug dealers, and that he is conscious of pain, and keeps asking whether I am alright, about my family, and wishes good health and the mercy of God to everyone.
I was informed by the Salem DCO that as of today, no opening of the checkpoint is planned for the olive harvest, but this is not a final decision.
'Anin checkpoint (214)
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'Anin checkpoint (214)
'Anin checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence east of the Israeli community Mei Ami and close to the village of Anin in the West Bank. It is opened twice a week, morning and afternoon, on days with shorter light time, for Anin farmers whose olive groves have been separated from the village by the fence it became difficult to cultivate their land. Transit permits are only issued to those who can produce ownership documents for their caged-in land, and sometimes only to the head of the family or his widow, eldest son, and children. Sometimes the inheritors lose their right to tend to the family’s land. The permits are eked out and are re-issued only with difficulty. 55-year-old persons may cross the checkpoint (into Israel) without special permits. During the olive harvest season (about one month around October) the checkpoint is open daily and more transit permits are issued. Names of persons eligible to cross are held in the soldiers’ computers. In July 2007, a sweeping instruction was issued, stating that whoever does not return to the village through this checkpoint in the afternoon will be stripped of his transit permit when he shows up there next time. Since 2019, the checkpoint has not been allways locked with the seam-line zone gate (1 of 3 gates), and the fence around it has been broken in several sites.
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