Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked, Ya'bed-Dotan, Tue 11.6.13, Morning

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Observers: 
Anna N-S.
Jun-11-2013
|
Morning
Seriously? Does this make us safer?

Translator:  Charles K.

 

06:00  Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint

A line of pickup trucks wait on the road for their merchandise to be inspected.  Laborers from the West Bank emerge from taxis and are swallowed up in the terminal.  They go through quickly.

Workers from the Shahak plant sit by the roadside waiting for their co-workers and their transportation to work.  They complain about conditions in the factories: oppressive heat, no fans or air conditioning.  They work until 17:30. 

200 seamstresses crossed to East Barta’a.

The toilets at the entrance to the fenced corridor are disgusting; it’s unlikely anyone from the occupation regime has been there recently.  Again we hear complaints that the checkpoint opens too late (07:00) on Friday, a short workday.

 

06:30  Ya’abed-Dothan checkpoint

A blue Star of David decorated with lights rises on a pole on a hill opposite Zebda to light the night for travelers.  Green tobacco fields along the road, with many people working in them.  A pastoral scene that only heightens the wretchedness of the homes belonging to the residents of Amrikha.  The road up to Ya’abed is blocked by a yellow metal bar, forcing the residents to make a long detour as they leave heading south and east.  The Ya’abed checkpoint isn’t manned; the road to Jenin is open.  The soldiers will arrive at 08:00.

 

07:10  Tura-Shaked checkpoint

Soldiers are there but the checkpoint is still locked.

 

07:15  Two students hurry to the university in Jenin.  The fenced corridor is locked; the female soldier doesn’t allow them or the driver in the vehicle parked next to the checkpoint to go through..

A man laden with packages comes through the fenced corridor from the West Bank.  The soldier comes to open it, 15 minutes late.  S. says he’d returned one day from his land 15 minutes after the checkpoint was to close (19:15).  The soldiers let him through.  The next day he wanted to go through the checkpoint to the seam zone but they hadn’t recorded his return the previous evening so he was considered to have slept in the seam zone.  His explanations and pleas didn’t avail; he was forced to go to the Salem DCO and obtain a new permit to reach his lands, which are trapped in the seam zone!  And until he received it he had enough time to reflect who’s allowed to be late and who isn’t in this painful land.

Today the crossing goes annoyingly slowly.  “The soldier’s sleeping,” they say.

 

08:15  We left.

 

Point of order:  The pedestrian crossing markings at the entrance to the checkpoint are completely faded…Isn’t it time to repaint them?