'Anin, Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked
05:50 Anin agricultural checkpoint
The soldiers are there, getting ready to open all three gates
of the checkpoint.
06:04 the first to come out of the checkpoint is a couple. The man tells us that there are some tractors waiting, and about 20 pedestrians. Passage is relatively quick, and within 10 minutes almost 10 people pass.
There are shouts from a woman soldlier: "you go home," at a youngster who tried to pass with an expired permit.
06:15 - the first tractor passes, and there are three more. Some of the people who go through are young people, without bags, in working cloths. I ask: what will you eat, what will you drink until noon? they shrug; perhaps they did not understand what I said.
06:30 "There are no more people - no more permits", those who exit say, and I remember in frastration how we'd demanded and insisted that the occupation authorities add 800 - 1000 more permits for the inhabitants of the 4000-person village. At the time, supposedly, there was someone to talk to.
06:45 Barta'a - Reihan chekoint.
Occupation routine. Everything is normal, like any other day, as though this is how it has been since the creation of the world, as if this is the way the world goes: people go through a fenced, twisting passage, their movement is limited within their own country. As they emerge from of the inspection they loop their belts into their trousers, a cigarette between their teeth. Outside the security guards, who are the ones with the power and control, are moving around, telling stories loudly, above the heads of those passing through, maybe in order to diminish their own routine, indifferent to those below them, in more than one way.
07:05 Tura Shaked checkpoint
Dozens of people crowd around the gate in the Palestinian parking lot. Two soldiers return after depositing garbage in the big countainer outside the checkpoint. One of them tells me, agressively, that this is a closed military area, and it is forbiden to go through and/or to photograph. He just says it,, not because he knows anything, since I am not inside the area of the checkpoint. I ask why they don't put their own garbage container inside the area of the nearby military base. A few more teasing words from them, and I bite my tongue and don't answer.
Pupils come on foot from the nearby village. The girls in the striped uniform dresses are holding the hands of the little ones. From the other side of the checkpoint people start to emerge, saying "everything is allright".
08:00 The flow of people on both sides is diminishing, and we plan to move on. A soldier comes to us and asking us sweetly why we help the Palestinians, and offers that we should go to the Kasbas in Jenin and Nablus. I say that we are here not to help, but to protest and warn by being present, and to document the occupation. A few more irrelevant sentences, and wego our separate ways.