Ya'bed-Dotan Checkpoint: A settler forges private road on Palestinian land
14:30 Tora-Shaked checkpoint
Very quiet and very dirty, as usual. The place has signage and a car of ‘The Fence Maintenance’. Maintenance probably does not include cleaning. Two women with cute girls move into the Seam Zone. A car is waiting to cross into the West Bank. Soldiers have time on their hands. A second car arrives. The soldiers still bide their time. Finally the cars pass. Another huge hangar has been built near the new fence that surrounds the Shaked settlement. We do not know its purpose.
We cross the Barta’a checkpoint. The Palestinian parking lot and the two lots up the road are full. The truck parking lot is empty.
15:00 We continue to the Ya’bed-Dotan checkpoint and notice that on the new road, which was opened from road 585, between Emricha and Mevo Dotan, a small tractor is traveling. We follow it to the locked yellow gate, which blocks the way. The guy on the tractor is wearing a T-shirt and on the back is the inscription ‘Havat El Naveh’ (which can be reached from Road 596) and in the front there is an IDF emblem and the inscription ‘Manela’. A strange conversation develops, apparently interspersed with “inaccuracies” on the guy’s part, who’s trying to “put one over on us”. Says he is a relative of the late Gadi Manela (fell in the Jordan Valley in 1968), who he says was a leftist and so was his family. The guy is not ready to say where the road leads and where he lives. Says he’s waiting for someone to open the gate, but in his belt there’s a gun as well as a key. He opens the gate, passes and locks. Perhaps the road connects to the outpost near Mevo Dotan, Maoz Zvi or Dotan B. The road is not paved but the dirt is well packed.
15:30 Ya’bed-Dotan checkpoint
From the guard tower, a soldier observes the cars traveling in both directions. Two huge trucks pass by nearly endangering the other cars. One of them carries a huge amount of organic manure, the smell of which is carried far and wide. The second carries a clean load, wrapped in plastic sheets. Some drivers bother to open windows and greet us. Next to the checkpoint is a garbage can filled to the brim with cartons that say ‘dairy pillbox’. Probably the food is dairy, not the pillbox.
16:00 Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint, Palestinian side
The guard lets us into the crowded parking lot. We park somehow. The cafeteria stands in place, and in the shed in front of it an older man sells large bags of peanuts in their shells. Someone has spread a prayer rug on the synthetic grass. A young man barred entry by the police asks for help. We give him the note with Sylvia’s phone numbers and wish him success.
16:20 We leave the checkpoint and watch the crowds of workers coming down the sleeve on their way home, to the West Bank.
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)
Mar-21-2022Anin Checkpoint: A magnificent breach in the center of the checkpoint
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Ya'bed-Dotan
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Ya’bed-Dotan
This checkpoint is located on road 585, at the crossroads of Mevo Dotan settler-colony / Jenin/ Ya’abad. It has an army watchtower (‘pillbox’ post) and concrete blocs that slow down vehicular traffic. It was erected when Barta’a Checkpoint, lying to the west on the Separation Fence, was privatized and its operation was passed over to civilian security personnel. Since December 2009 this checkpoint enables flow of Palestinian vehicular traffic towards the Barta’a Checkpoint. Seldom is it manned by soldiers sitting in the watchtower, who conduct random inspections of vehicles and passengers. (february 2020)
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