'Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 15.9.08, Morning

Place:

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

'Anin

Tags:

Seam Zone

Maltreatment

Observers:

Barb (guest from the USA), Neta G., Anna N. S.

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Sep-15-2008

Morning

Translation: Devorah K.

05:05 Reihan CP

The first of those leaving the terminal are walking up the sleeve info-icon

. In the lower parking lot there are dozens of people standing in perfect single file as if in officers' line-up. The seamstresses arrive. In the shed about 20 people are praying. In the courtyard at the entrance to the terminal there are dozens more men, some of whom are praying. At the moment the passage is halted. About 100 people are waiting outside the terminal. Inside the terminal there are a few dozen. Barb, our guest, photographs the orderly queue of those waiting, just as we always do.

05:15 - People go through in fives, alternating groups of men and women. From the bus stop, I observe how things proceed all around the CP. Six pickup trucks are waiting for the inspection compound to open at 6.00. Four private cars are being inspected with the help of a barking dog.

05.40 - All those who were waiting have entered the terminal.

A security guard arrives, and introduces himself as S. L., the person in charge of the morning shift at the CP. He is openly hostile. He tries to get me to leave my place and after a short argument demands that I stop writing things down. Despite how ridiculous he is, I give in and do not do any writing while he is around. Now he turns on our guest: takes away her camera info-icon

. It is not clear on what authority he does this, and he calls the police to come and arrest us. According to him, as a foreign citizen, she has no right to stay in this place and he can send her to the occupied areas so that she will return to Israel through the proper CP. He holds it against us that we have brought a foreigner to this CP. After some negotiating and after we turned his attention to the site to see the reports and the photographs from other CPs, he leaves us in order to consult with somebody, and after that, having deleted the pictures that were taken, he returns the camera.

06:10 A'anin agricultural CP

According to the first people who leave there are 80 to 100 people waiting. As usual, it is hard for us to see the inspections and the record-taking that is going on between the lower CP and the middle CP. Toward the hour of 7.00, the tempo of passage accelerates. A large proportion of those going through are young people in their twenties.

06:20 - There is a tumult in the lower CP. People are yelling and shouting. The soldiers are closing the middle gate and opposite the locked gate they allow the people who have been waiting below to come up. These people continue to fight with one another and the soldiers stand opposite them with their hands in their pockets, indifferent but with their weapons drawn. An older man approaches the fence and tries to explain something to the soldier in broken Hebrew and with hand jestures. The soldier points to the back and the man retires. A Hummer arrives with reinforcements. Only after the Palestinians organize themselves in a single queue at the end of the educational lecture given by the soldiers, is the gate opened for the continuation of the crossing.

06:35 - About 10 people are waiting in the CP and we leave.

07:25 Shaked CP

People say that since 07.:0 about 40 men and women have gone through. Those leaving from the West Bank crowd near the turnstile at the entrance to the inspection facility. The proceedings are routine. Teachers (men and women) from Umm el-Reihan arrive from the West Bank.

07:50 - The first of the pupils go through with no delay.

08:30 Reihan CP

A few people go through to the West Bank and from the West Bank to the seamline zone. Four pickup trucks enter for inspection. A bus from Barta'a goes through at the vehicle passageway to the West Bank. The passengers get out, the driver hands over the ID cards that he collected from all of them to the person in the hut. About ten minutes pass before he returns the documents. Passengers pass their magnetic cards over the wall of the hut and present their documents for inspection - routines of the occupation.

A man and a woman in modern dress leave the terminal in the direction of the West Bank. They are Israeli Arabs who teach in the American University on the outskirts of Jenin. they claim that in the recent past they could get to Jenin in their own cars; today they are required to travel there by means of Palestinian transportation. They complain about the impossible pressure in the terminal, especially when they come back at about 4.00. They claim that the passage is slow. The CP is manned by too few inspectors. A. tells us that yesterday afternoon the computer broke down and about 350 people were stuck in the terminal. Another person claims that there are people who break their fast in Barta'a because of the circumstances.

09:00 We left.

Location Description

Anin agricultural checkpoint

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located on the Separation Fence east of the Israeli community Mei Ami and close to the village of Anin in the West Bank. It is opened twice a week, morning and afternoon, for periods of time that are growing shorter Lith time. It is meant for Anin farmers whose olive groves have been separated from the village by the fence. Transit permits are only issued to those who can produce ownership documents for their caged-in land, and sometimes only to the head of the family or his widow, eldest son and children. At times the inheritors lose their right to tend to the family’s land. The permits are eked out and are re-issued only with difficulty. 55-year old persons may cross the checkpoint (into Israel) without special permits. During the olive harvest season (about one month around October) the checkpoint is open every day and more transit permits are issued. Names of persons eligible to cross are held in the soldiers’ computers. In July 2007, a sweeping instruction was issued according to which whoever does not return to the village through this checkpoint in the afternoon will be stripped of his transit permit when he shows up there next time. Since 2019, the checkpoint has not been allways locked with the seam-line zone gate (1 of 3 gates info-icon ), and the fence around it has been broken in several sites.

Tura-Shaked Checkpoint

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This is a fabric of life* checkpoint through which pedestrians, cabs and private cars (since 2008) pass to and from the West Bank and the Seam-line Zone to and from the industrical zone near the settler-colony Shaked, schools and kindergartens, and Jenin university campuses. The checkpoint is located between Tura village inside the West Bank and the village of Dahar Al Malah inside the enclave of the Seam-line Zone. It is opened twice a day, between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., and from 12 noon to 7 p.m. People crossing it (at times even kindergarten children) are inspected in a bungalow with a magnometer. Names of those allowed to cross it appear in a list held by the soldiers. Usually traffic here is scant.

fabric of life roads and checkpoints, as defined by the Terminals Authority in the Ministry of Defense (fabric of life is a laundered name that does not actually describe any kind of humanitarian purpose) are intended for Palestinians only. These roads and checkpoints have been built on lands appropriated from their Palestinian owners, including tunnels, bypass roads, and tracks passing under bridges. Thus traffic can flow between the West Bank and its separated parts that are not in any kind of territorial contiguity with it. Mostly there are no permanent checkpoint on these roads but rather ‘flying’ checkpoints, check-posts or surprise barriers. At Toura, a small (less than one dunam) and sleepy checkpoint has been established, which has filled up with the years with nearly .every means of supervision and surveillance that the Israeli military occupation has produced. (February 2020)

Mar-22-2022

Ruti Tuval

The locked gate at the Anin checkpoint

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Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint

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This checkpoint is located on the Separation Fence route, east of the Palestinian town of East Barta’a. The latter is the largest Palestinian community inside the seam-line zone (Barta’a Enclave) in the northern West Bank. Western Barta’a, inside Israel, is adjacent to it. The Checkpoint is open all week from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Since mid-May 2007, the checkpoint has been managed by a civilian security company subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. People permitted to cross through this checkpoint into and from the West Bank are residents of Palestinian communities inside the Barta’a Enclave as well as West Bank Palestinian residents holding transit permit. Jewish settlers from Hermesh and Mevo Dotan cross here without inspection. A large, modern terminal is active here with 8 windows for document inspection and biometric tests (eyes and fingerprints). Usually only one or two of the 8 windows are in operation. Goods, up to medium commercial size, may pass here from the West Bank into the Barta’a Enclave. A permanent registered group of drives who have been approved by the may pass with farm produce. When the administration of the checkpoint was turned over to a civilian security firm, the Ya’abad-Mevo Dotan Junction became a permanent checkpoint. . It is manned by soldiers who sit in the watchtower and come down at random to inspect vehicles and passengers (February 2020).