Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim), Thu 2.9.10, Morning

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Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)

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Tsvia S., Rachel A. (reporting) Guests: two women from Tel Aviv University who are doing research on international human rights movements.

Sep-2-2010

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Morning

Watchers: Tsvia S., Rachel A. (reporting)

Guests: two women from Tel Aviv University who are doing research on international human rights movements.

Translation: Suzanne O.

We left central Israel at 4:00 a.m., and arrived at around 4:30 a.m.

Due to Ramadan the roadblock was less busy.

At first we stood at the entrance. The turnstiles opened for shorter times and at shorter intervals.

Later we moved to the exit and after that we moved to the waiting area.

We talked to labourers waiting for transport.

The main complaint today was about the long periods of time spent in the rooms. Some said 40 minutes and others half an hour. It means standing in a small room waiting for documents to be inspected or for further inspections.

We asked to talk to the manager who came over (not the one we talked to last time but someone familiar to us) and, according to him there are things that are necessary, not set by him, but by 'other factors' and which are not under his control, he is also unable to tell us what they are. Thus labourers queue every day in the inspection room waiting for their documents. He claimed that they spend a short time in the room.

It would appear that the person waiting, standing, estimates the time in the room to be longer than the manager who sits in his office.

I asked one of the complainants to come and speak to the manager; he refused because of obvious reasons.

We asked the manager to give us a tour inside the building so that we can understand how it works and he said that this is possible. Just put in your request to the administration of the crossings. We shall put in such a request.

Following the report of two weeks' ago, the new roadblock has been set up on the road and it is closed to cars from the car park area. Cars are directed to a large car park which has been readied over the past two weeks and it is indeed more orderly. The residents of Pharun are lucky that the roadblock has reached the foot of the hill on which the village is situated making it difficult to acquire more land.

We left at 6:00 a.m.

We drove along the old route: Anabta, Beit Iba, Jit, Punduk and Ramat HaSharon. We came across jeeps observing or driving to various places. There was no human or traffic roadblock anywhere. There was also hardly any traffic on the roads.

Location Description

Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)

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The checkpoint is for Palestinians only. It is the main barrier to the passage of workers from the northern West Bank to Israel.
Workers with a permit to work in Israel and also for trade (with appropriate permissions), medicine, and visiting prisoners.
One can cross the checkpoint only on foot. The checkpoint is located north of Road 557 and south of Tulkarm. Operated by a civil security company, opening hours: between 4:00 and 19:00 on weekdays.
As members of Machsom Watch, we began our shifts to this location in 2007.
We arrived before it opened at 4 in the morning and report since, on the harsh conditions and the long and crowded queues of workers. The workers who pass by continue their journey by transportation to work throughout Israel.

In the first period of its activity, about 3,000 and then 5,000 people passed through this checkpoint every day. Due to the small number of checking points and arbitrary delays for long periods of time in the "rooms", workers feared losing their transportation.
Hence workers leave their homes at 2:30 at night to be among the first. Today, 15,000 pass and the transition is faster. Workers are still leaving their homes very early to get past the checkpoint at 7 p.m.

In an adjacent compound, there is a terminal for the transfer of goods on a commercial scale, using the back-to-back method.