Tora-Shaked checkpoint: delay in opening the gates
05:45 – 08:00
05:45, Highway 611
The coffee station is in place and the east Barta’a junction wakes up to take in workers who arrive from the breaches in the separation fence. Workers stream in from two holes next to the village of Kalkis to a convoy of cars that wait for them on the sides of the highway.
06:00 – Barta’a Checkpoint
In the upper parking lot workers wait like every day, for transportation. They arrive from the lower parking lot, enter the terminal, and exit the long sleeve (the enclosed passage to and from the terminal) in the direction of the upper parking lot. Some of them stop for a cup of coffee at the kiosk in the middle of the sleeve. Workers leaving the terminal complain to us that they are delayed for a long time in the crowded inspection rooms.
06:30 – Anin Agricultural Checkpoint
Next to the gate, M., his son, and his tractor are already waiting (the only ones who pass through the checkpoint twice a week, despite many who pass through every day via the large breach in the fence). At 06:45 the soldiers passed through in a hurry in the direction of Tayibe-Rumana Checkpoint and only return at 07:00 (a delay of 30 minutes) to open the checkpoint for M.
07:30 – Tura-Shaked Checkpoint
The checkpoint only opens at 07:00, a delay of half an hour. Workers exit, some of them by foot and some via transits, to workplaces. Three teachers from the West Bank pass through to teach in East Barta’a’s elementary school, where 180 pupils study. There is also a high school in the city. We met the girls who pass cross from the Seamline Zone to the girls’ school in Ya’bed, a student who crossed to school in Jenin, and three children who study at the elementary school in Ya’bed.
A resident of Daher al Malec who arrived in a vehicle from the West Bank, complains to us that the soldiers delay him now because they take a food break (even though the checkpoint is opened only at 07:00).
Likewise, the residents complain that the girls who cross to go to school, are checked in the closed inspection room, sometimes by male and not female soldiers. That is considered to be immodest and something that very much insults and embarrasses them.
Six cars cross from the West Bank to the Seamline Zone and two cars cross to the West Bank. The passage is now quick.
'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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East Barta'a Junction
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East Barta'a Junction
The main station at the eastern Barta'a junction (Roads 611/6115).
A junction without special activities became about April 2020 a bustling center of transportation to workplaces in Israel, following the free passage through loopholes in the nearby separation fence.
Palestinian workers from all over the West Bank gather here every morning, without transit permits and often without masks. The army is turning a blind eye and the occupation is losing control.
There is also no shortage of coffee and pastry stalls.
Hagar DrorSep-26-2023Barta'a: rapid construction of the separation fence
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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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