The northern checkpoints: the beautiful of nature versus the ugliness of humans
15:00 – 16:30
Barta’a Checkpoint
Many laborers return from their work in Israel and the Seamline Zone and go down the long sleeve (enclosed path) to the terminal. Many young people cut short the long passage and jump over the fence of the sleeve. We ask about the crossing this morning, and they tell us that the passage at about 06:00 took between 15 and 45 minutes, and there was no crowding.
Students, residents of Barta’a, which is in the Seamline Zone and who work the second shift, pass from the West Bank to the Seamline Zone.
Tura Checkpoint
The Border Patrol who operate the checkpoint leave the checkpoint to greet us and to make sure that “everything is OK.”
Cars pass quickly in two directions. Women, children, and young people who leave for work arrive from the West Bank to the Seamline Zone by vehicles or by foot. One of the young people tells us that this morning because the checkpoint opened late — 07:15 at best–vehicles and people crowded in front of the checkpoint (on the West Bank side). This situation primarily hurts the passage of teachers who arrive from the West Bank and who teach in the Palestinian villages in the Seamline Zone; most of them are late for school.
Laborers return from work in the Seamline Zone and from Israel; those who return from Israel left in the morning via a distant Barta’a Checkpoint because the Tura Checkpoint opened late.
We travel in this beautiful, wooded area surrounded by security roads that cut off the forest and continue along the frightful separation wall whose building continues to be completed.
We met our acquaintance, M., and bought olive oil from him. He succeeded in transferring the containers of oil with an acquaintance who has a tractor and, by himself, made the long distance through checkpoints, a long way from his home, in order to meet us and successfully sell his agricultural goods.
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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