Tura checkpoint: A soldier asks us not to disturb public order!
15:30 Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint
On the way to the checkpoint, at the exit from Harish, border policemen are stopping and inspecting vehicles bringing Palestinian workers back from their work in Israel.
At the checkpoint itself, there’s a lively movement of workers coming back home, mainly from Israel. We go down towards the terminal with the workers. An Israeli truck driver who arrived at the checkpoint by mistake instead of driving to Harish is asked by the security guard how he got there. After showing his documents, he turns round and leaves. On our return to the hut in the upper parking lot in the seamline zone, we have our first meeting with a group of Palestinian waiters who work in Israel, who have met our associates many times.
16:10 Tura-Shaked checkpoint
The shoulders of the road have been widened with kurkar stone (thereby covering up some of the endless garbage here at the checkpoint), making it easier for cars to make a U-turn, which they have to do here. Four cars have each been waiting at least 10 minutes to cross into the West Bank. Six or seven cars arrive from the West Bank after a light inspection. One of the drivers, an elegant and respectable man, who is carrying equipment he bought for his home in Umm Reihan in his car, tells us angrily that he was held up for an hour and a half at the checkpoint even though he had made sure in advance to “coordinate” the goods in his car as required in the occupation rulebook. A huge tractor driving east on the security road is kept waiting for the (new?) gate east of the checkpoint to open and comes up to a truck that’s waiting not far from there. Work is being done on the wall.
An army vehicle stops beside us and a soldier asks us not to disturb the public order. Unbelievable!
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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