Tura checkpoint: IDF plastic bags always scattered here around, defined by the soldiers as "Palestinian rubbish"
15:30 – 16:40
Tura Shaked Checkpoint – 15:30
Two cars were waiting to cross to the West Bank. The soldiers arrived and the cars crossed. Several cars, a tractor, and people crossed in both directions. A woman returning from shopping in Jenin to her home in Um Reihan told us that she shops in Jenin three or four times a month. She explained that she is forced to wait a long time at the checkpoint even if it was not crowded.
Two of the soldiers at the checkpoint came to see what we were doing there. We talked with them and mentioned the piles of garbage at the entrance to the checkpoint. They claimed that it was left by the Palestinians despite the fact that most of it is IDF plastic bags. They parted with the claim that they are guarding the country, as opposed to us.
Barta’a Checkpoint, 16:05
Dozens of workers were returning to the West Bank from work in Israel. They stopped at the kiosk to buy cakes and phone cards.
University students carrying suitcases were returning to Barta’a from the West Bank as well as high school students coming home from school and families with children. All of them returned through the terminal that was not manned and passed through the new identification machines. The workers at the checkpoint were “worried” that I was there and every few minutes another worker arrived to keep an eye on me.
The sides of the road leading to the checkpoint on the Palestinian side were empty. Cars used to park here but last week the police began giving fines to drivers who parked here.
Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
See all reports for this place-
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).
-
Tura-Shaked
See all reports for this place-
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
-