'Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 27.10.08, Afternoon

Translation: Devorah K.

14:40 - 15:2- Shaked / Tura

When we arrived, the CP was completely deserted. We try to find out whether the complaint about a limitation on the quantity of sacks of olives that can be transported is true. The soldiers confirm that people have to get a special permit. After a few minutes, the CP fills up with a crowd of children and women coming back from the olive - picking, and cars that arrive to pick them up. The (adolescent) boys tell us that they pick olives four days a week and go back to school on Thursday. From a distance we witness the negotiations between the young boys and the soldiers. At the end, after a telephone call, the boys go through in the direction of the West Bank with sacks. A woman, who has a tub with tools in it on her head, is returned to the gate; she puts the tools onto a Transit that leaves quickly in the direction of the seamline zone. Afterwards she returns to the soldiers and goes through the CP in the direction of the West Bank.

The gate opened a bit before 15:30. About 20 people crowd near it. We hear complaints about not getting permits to go out to the olive-picking. By 15:45, all of them go through. At 15:50 tractors loaded with sacks of olives begin to arrive. Women and children are sitting on them. Women and children arrive on donkeys. The people's passage is quick. Only the permits are inspected. Somebody tells us that his father has olive trees in the area between the gates, that is to say, between the main fence and the barbed wire fence (a sterile area?). He asks for permission to pick the olives. The soldier responds to us that there is no possibility of doing this. Another man claims that he cannot get to his olive grove with a tractor; the grove is fifty dunams on the slope of a hill the length of the barbed wire fence. In the past, he could approach the grove from the area between the fences. He threatens to bring the case to court. At 16:20 another eight workers arrive, and after five minutes a tractor loaded with women arrives. At 16:35 they begin to close the gates. Two workers who arrive running are scolded by the soldiers and an additional man who arrives just after they have locked the gates - remains outside them. The soldiers refuse to let him in, despite our pleas, and they leave. We hear the sound of laughter from that direction ... The worker who was late comes with us to the Reihan CP. The trip home will cost him about a hundred shekels and will take an hour and a quarter away from the time he has to rest.