'Anin, Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked

07:15 - 08:15 Agricultural CP A'anin

According to the people here, about 20 people have already gone through. The inspection process is slow and it is being conducted at the far gate, on the side of A'anin. A. from the DCO ("I'm not allowed to talk to you.") is bythe CP that is nearer to us. A young fellow is smoking calmly by the hut. A. is talking on the phone, taking care of his problem. I approach and wait until he finishes talking so that I can find out what this is about. While he is still talking on the phone another young fellow passes by. The DCO person continues talking on the phone but sticks out his hand and the fellow hands over his ID and joins his friend. Twenty minutes later they got permission to go through to the olive grove in the seamline zone. Most of the complaints regard permits - only one member of each family has received a permit to go through to harvest the olives. And the duration of the permit is only one month. 

07:30 - the passage is slow. 20 people are waiting, as well as a tractor pulling a wagon with 7 men, women and children in it. The tractor goes through after waiting at the CP for a quarter of an hour. A young man and a boy go through. Two women, a young woman and an older one, equipped with a long branch and a donkey, and on the donkey there is a saddle with two sacks. The older woman, whose sad story was mentioned in our last report, has to get to her small olive grove which is far away. She is afraid to ride there alone and to pick her olives alone. That is why she carries the big branch.

The man from the DCO, A., refuses to talk to us. The soldiers are quite courteous. They carry out orders: they only let people with permits go through, and they call to find out  about those which are in question. They do not have the authority to decide things themselves. It's cold, freezing.

08:30 Tura CP

The CP opened late, at 07:30 according to the locals, at 07:10 according to the soldiers. The soldiers claim that they apologized to those waiting for being late. Here, too, the passage is slow. Most of those going through arrive from the West Bank. At 09:00 I saw 20 more people in line in front of the inspection hut.

Soldiers approach us to find out who we are. They have never heard of Machsom Watch. They have not heard of S. Yizhar's story "Hirbet Hiz'eh" either. According to a one, all the Arabs have run away in 1948. Regarding the lack of electricity in Daher el Malek? Let them be grateful that they are still alive ... The woman soldier complains that she hears curses from Palestinians whom she denies passage to. She does not understand why. We suggest that she try to identify with the older people (of the age of her parents), for whom the CP has once been their own backyard, and so on. And now she is the one who decides if they can go through. Later we met a man who lives just beside the CP and is still forced to take the long way around in order to get here. Go tell the naive girl-soldier that tis is what he must do.

09:20 New Barta'a CP

Now there are only a few people going through the sleeve. There are almost no taxis waiting to go to Barta'a. On the main road there is a long queue of small and large trucks. Some of the trucks leave after inspection and others immediately take their place. The usual routine of the road.

09:45 - We left..