Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked

15:00 Tura-Shaked

At first glance it looked as if the checkpoint area had been cleaned, but when we entered the sleeve we saw lots of dirt on the sides. A soldier, who ordered us to get out of the sleeve, promised to make sure the place was cleaned.  Next to the gate on the Palestinian side, a boy was standing. He was not allowed to pass through into the seamline zone since he did not have a permit. It did not help that a relative came from the seamline zone.

There was not much traffic, only a few pedestrians and every now and then a single car. A vehicle from "Reihan Security" arrived and let some workers out. We left at 15:30.

On the way to Barta'a-Reihan we visited the industrial area "Shahak". We picked up a few hitchhikers at the turn to the checkpoint. One of them told us that he lives next to the checkpoint at Tura but that he has no permit to pass there, so he has to make a long detour to return home through the checkpoint at Barta'a.

16:00 Barta'a-Reihan

The parking lot on the Palestinian side was crammed so it was very hard to maneuver the car. Many cars were parking on the road. A man told us that he had been detained at the Ya'abed checkpoint in the morning because he had refused to let the soldiers check his wife. They had handcuffed him and brought him to the Dotan camp. He had been held there until an officer released him after more than 3 hours. 

A large number of laborers returned from work in Israel or the seamline zone. There was a long line at the inspection machine. It appeared that there had been a breakdown, sometimes only one machine was working and sometimes not even one machine was functioning. When we tried to find out what was going on we were told that they were taking care of things. But at 17:40 the line was still very long. We were told that only one window is open in the morning so it might take 2 hours to pass through.

We left at 18:00