מחסומי הצפון: החיילים הגיעו, אבל אין בכוונתם לפתוח את המחסום
05:45 - Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
About 10 seamstresses wait for transportation to the sewing factory in East Barta’a. Small groups of workers go up from the ‘sleeve
’ (the enclosed pathway) from the terminal to the empty and quiet upper parking lot (quiet, compared to the past). “The market square is empty.” We don’t know if the smaller number of people passing the checkpoint is because of the reduction in the number of passage permits to Israel, or because of the reduction I construction in Harish.
Some of the workers work in the Seamline Zone and some in Israel. In the terminal, the windows are open; in each one there is are two people, who are chatting without doing anything most of the time. The lower parking lot is not full and almost no taxis arrive with passengers. We also notice that there are only a few vehicles with merchandise for the market in Barta’a. This is also not as it has been in the past when many cars would park at night in order to grab a space in line first thing in the morning.
One of the workers complains that he’s not allowed to pass through the checkpoint with a cup of coffee that he has bought at the entrance.
06:30 – Anin Checkpoint
The soldiers haven’t come yet. We hear the people and the tractors that are waiting below for the opening of the checkpoint.
06:35 – The soldiers arrived but they do not intend to open the checkpoint. They sit in the shelter, amuse themselves and do exercises with their weapons. We look for and find flowering orchids.
Our phone calls to the District Coordination Office are not being answered. Is there a change in the opening hours that no one knows about?
07:00 – The soldiers get up and open the gates; all the people driving tractors enter the area of the checkpoint and approach by threes to the inspection station. Forty people pass through, among them three women and a child, and three tractors. One man was sent back to his village because he had lost his permit.
Two of the women have permits to pass only at Anin Checkpoint, despite the fact that they live in Tura (a long trip away). Both women were not born in Tura; one was born in Jenin (and her daughter lives in Anin) and the second was born in Anin, but they both live in Tura since they have married. This is not the first time we have run into this phenomenon: when permits are given to Palestinians, no thought is given to where they live today; only where they were born.