'Anin, Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked, Mon 4.3.13, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
06:05 A’anin checkpoint
The checkpoint is open; people go through. Inspections are carried out at the middle gate; records are kept by hand.
An elderly woman tries to cross with her grandson. Her son, the boy’s father, leaves for work through a different checkpoint; the grandmother doesn’t have a crossing permit. The soldiers don’t allow the boy through. Vahel, the DCO representative, answers this time (“I was on vacation”) and immediately promises to help the woman if she’ll call him. The soldiers send back another boy whom they didn’t allow to cross with his mother. We called Vahel again; he looked into it and instructed them to allow the boy to join his mother.
06:20 People carrying bags with a changes of clothes are asked to leave them behind. They say the weather keeps changing and they need to have appropriate clothing. The occupyer suspects their intentions. Nor do the soldiers let people take what appears to them to be “commercial quantities” of cigarettes. Bags with food are carefully inspected to ensure that no items for sale slip through, God forbid.
A young man tells us that his application for an Israeli work permit has been refused repeatedly. His Israeli employer keeps applying to the Civil Administration
for a crossing permit, but is refused. He says the Shabak tried to recruit him as a collaborator, but he refused.
07:00 About 30 people have crossed by now, slowly. Twenty more wait.
07:15 Shked-Tura checkpoint
The checkpoint opened a few minutes ago, late again. Four vehicles wait to cross to the West Bank. About 20 people wait to come from the West Bank to the seam zone. The teachers go through upset, as usual, after being inspected inside. One says: Only war will solve the checkpoint problems. He says the soldiers purposely work slowly.
An elderly man tells us that his son, who’s married to a woman living in Barta’a, hasn’t been able to obtain a permit to visit her for years.
08:10 Reihan-Barta’a checkpoint
People from Yabed tell us an additional checkpoint has been set up last week. Soldiers stand at a side road to Yabed; they don’t check documents but they make vehicles wait. The wait can last more than an hour when traffic is heavy in the morning and evening. The road is blocked during the day by a locked iron bar. One laborer on the way to work stops to tell us that on Saturday he tried take his sick wife through there to the hospital in Jenin, but had to wait a long time. Only after he personally explained the situation to the soldier were they allowed out.
This road is closed repeatedly because children from Yabed throw rocks at settlers from Mevo Dothan. The soldiers don’t allow them to take this road on their way to school; they have to go through the fields and groves which may be very muddy.
Ali must go through almost daily to Haifa’s Rambam hospital. Samer, his mother, tells us that yesterday she and Ali left the hospital at 7 PM and when they reached Yabed they were forced to wait for an hour at the side entrance to the locality because the soldiers slowed the crossing.