There are sufficient permits for our servants. Not for landowners!
‘Anin Checkpoint 6:30 a.m.
The olive harvest will begin next week, after the Jews finish their festivities
The checkpoint opens at the exact time it is supposed to, and passage appears to be taking place smoothly.
A youngster from the village shows us a farmer’s permit for all days of the week through this checkpoint alone, valid until the end of December, apparently until the end of the olive harvest. He owns groves and fields within the Seamline Zone, has a work permit inside Israel (in a construction site in the new town of Harish), had a permit to cross Barta’a checkpoint and all was well. Now the previous permit to cross Barta’a daily has been taken from him, and he is forced to return to limited crossing at ‘Aneen. He asks us for help to obtain a crossing permit through Toura checkpoint, which is open daily (naturally one cannot hold a crossing permit for two checkpoints). He asks: How can I manage to cultivate my lands only two days a week? How? We can hardly look him in the eye. What about the Palestinian DCO? They can’t help him, that’s what they told him. And the Israeli DCO? He went there twice, at Salem, and couldn’t get to meet the responsible officer. A relative of his tended a beautiful olive grove next to the checkpoint, until they pulled a similar trick on him and he gave up, abandoned the olive trees and became a cab driver with his private vehicle.
An Anin villager we have known for years, a widow, owns a grove down the hill near the checkpoint. She opened her own olive harvest, as she is the only person in her family who holds a permit for this time. The occupation does not recognize the possibility of family relatives helping each other in the burning seasons! Now she descends to her olive grove with her donkey and a youngster from the village, a grandchild perhaps. Her grove is far down the hill and next to the fence, with a locked gate. The Palestinians requested this gate be opened for passage, at least during harvest time, for the down- and up-hill trek is very difficult for her. The authorities wouldn’t open it.
Toura Shaked Checkpoint 7 a.m.
An ‘Aneen villager who comes here with his vehicle to carry workers to their worksite – expanding the road from Katzir east to Umm Reihan – complains that the workers are only let through at 8 a.m. This “life fabric” checkpoint is nearly always empty, especially if the soldiers operate it at the necessary pace. So why arbitrarily delay workers for over an hour? At ‘Aneen we met a farmer wishing to access his lands, and whose permit has been taken away – a permit that made his life easier. Here we meet an ‘Aneen villager who has received a permit to transport workers to a road-construction especially wanted by the Occupation authorities. The occupied people’s livelihood only interests the occupier when ways to damage and ruin it are at hand. For works such as building the Jewish town of Harish, or expanding roads in the Seamline Zone there is sufficient paper and good will to issue work and transit permits.
Barta’a checkpoint 7:30 a.m.
We saw something was amiss when we were still in the upper car park. Even if the checkpoint opened only half an hour ago, still too few people were crossing. In the Palestinian lower car park we encounter scenes from the past: chaos. A crowd of people wait, angry, crushing against the entrance to the turnstile that leads to the terminal. Passage is stuck. Because of the Jewish High Holidays, there is closure and no passage into Israel allowed, only into the Seamline Zone. But everyone showed up. ON a usual morning 2500 people and more cross here, most of them workers constructing the new Jewish town of Harish. Could the delay be a result of selecting and separating the workers?
Tayibe and Roumana checkpoint 8 a.m.
Apparently the checkpoint opened 15 minutes earlier than usual, and when we got there everyone had already crossed.
'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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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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Tayba-Rummana
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Tayba-Rummana is an agricultural checkpoint. It is located in the separation fence in front of the eastern slopes of the Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm. The Palestinian villages next to the checkpoint are Khirbet Tayba and Rummana. Dozens of dunams of olive groves were removed from their owners, the residents of these villages on the western side of the separation fence. The Palestinian villages next to the checkpoint are Khirbet Tayba and Rumna. Dozens of olives dunams were removed from these villages' residents and swallowed up in a narrow strip of space, on the western side of the separation fence. The checkpoint allows the plantation owners who have permits to pass. Twice a week, the checkpoint opens for fifteen minutes in the morning and evening. During the harvest season, it opens every day for fifteen minutes in the morning (around 0630) and fifteen minutes in the afternoon (around 1530). (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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