'Anin, Reihan, Shaked, Mon 5.1.09, Morning
Translation: Devorah K.
6.05 A'anin CP - Agricultural CP
It is freezing cold against a background of an astonishing sunrise, with the sun breaking out of heavy threatening clouds. There are two guard posts in two concrete cubes, and the guards' guns are drawn in the "right" direction. The residents tell us that about fifty people with permits are waiting to go through in the descent from the CP. Those going through have their names recorded by the soldiers and receive a number that they will have to present when they come back in the afternoon. A tractor loaded with meat in cardboard boxes is not allowed to go through to the seamline zone. The driver tries to convince the soldiers but does not succeed and the boxes are returned to A'anin. The inspection of personal equipment -- what people have in their bags, and such, is carried out on the muddy ground.
06.50 Inspection halted. Three soldiers come down to let those waiting enter the compound of the CP and they close the lower gate. Until now, about 30 people and a few tractors have gone through. Dozens more are waiting outside. Three people are turned back because their permits are not valid. A number of beautiful girls - pupils with textbooks climb up from the wadi on their way to school in Umm Reihan. Three little boys on a skinny donkey leave the donkey on the road going up and continue on foot. Our acquaintance, A. S. from A'anin, tells us that the handcuffed prisoner who went crazy here a few weeks ago was released by the police who arrived, after he was warned not to repeat the offense that the soldiers then accused him of.
07.15 Less than ten people are standing in the passage. We leave.
07.30 Shaked -Tura CP
Pupils and students are going through to the West Bank, and on the other side there are workers going through to the seamline zone. On the road leading up to the CP, they have put up concrete blocks to stop cars on the way to the CP. A stone roadblock, stones left over from the fence, separates the road from the muddy margins where the pedestrians going there and back have to walk. Wait time for going through is reasonable. There are no superfluous delays, and the procedures are quiet.
07.50 Reihan-Barta'a CP
According to the drivers, the CP opened at 05.00 and the workers from Shahak and the seamstresses have already gone through. Three pickup trucks with goods are waiting to go through - very few by contrast with the days before. A few private cars have also gone through. They are inspecting cars and documents for those going through to the west bank from the seamline zone.
Men and women are waiting on the bench in the central roundabout of the CP, beside some bushes and the rest of the pyramids, with the entire landscape around them mocking them! Workers go through constantly. They get out of the cars in groups and are swallowed up in the terminal. There are no complaints or delays -- aside from the humiliating constraint of the process of inspection in the terminal when they are on their way from one part of their own country to another. People tell us that in the area of the settlements near the CP some special activities are going on. The army patrols are at the boundaries of the villages and not in them. At the Americha - Mavo Dothan CP, everything is as usual.
08.50 We left