Barta`a checkpoint: the morning crossing is crowded again

Place:

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Crowding

Walls and Blockades

Observers:

Ruthi T., Hanna H. Marcia L., Translation

Leave this field blank

Aug-3-2023

Afternoon

Tura checkpoint: The wall is advancing close to the houses of the village

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

15:00 – 1615

Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint

We feel the summer vacation. Many children return, with parents, to East Barta’a (in the Seamline Zone) from visits and shopping for clothes. Waiters also return from the West Bank, dressed in white shirts, to work at weddings in the settlements of Wadi Ara, in Israel.

And from the opposite direction: hundreds of workers return home to the West Bank from a day’s work in Israel and the Seamline Zone. We were impressed today, especially, with the large numbers of young workers. We understood from them that in the first hours of the morning (between 04:00 and 05:00), there is huge crowding at the entrance to the terminal and the crossing is slow. Workers that cross in the later hours report that the passage is fast and there is no crowding. At 06:00, at the time the shifts of staff change, there is a short pause, and again, there is great crowding. One of the young men says, “OK for us, but the adults suffer a lot from the crowding and the heat.”

Tura-Shaked Checkpoint

Welcoming us is the terrible wall, that was built very close to Tura residents. People tell us that they feel suffocated by it. A group of young people waits for transportation to work as waiters at weddings in Israel. People who return from shopping in the West Bank, continue on to their homes in the Seamline Zone by regular shuttle. Cars cross in two directions; few workers return to the West Bank from work in the Seamline Zone. One of them tells us that this morning the checkpoint opened very late (after 07:30) and over 50 people waited.

Location Description

Tura-Shaked Checkpoint

See all reports for this place

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

View the full album

Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint

See all reports for this place

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).