Barta'a checkpoint: Heavy vehicles are carving up the terraces

Place:

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Ya'bed-Dotan

Observers:

Marina Banai and Ruti Tuval. Translation: Naomi Halsted

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Mar-5-2023

Afternoon

14:40 Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint

Workers are beginning to return to the West Bank from work in Israel and the Seamline Zone. We cross the checkpoint and park in the renovated parking lot opposite Zbeida to get a sense of the changes that have been made. A huge parking lot extends over the western slopes of the checkpoint and there’s another small lot adjacent to the first, the only one with asphalt. Heavy vehicles are carving up the terraces opposite and filling what's left of the beautiful valley. Brand new cars everywhere indicate some kind of economic prosperity, but we don’t forget Anwar, who has to pay NIS 2,400 a month to the Israeli “employer” from Netanya, who doesn’t provide him with a living but out of the goodness of his heart provides him with a permit allowing him to rustle up occasional days of work.

Yaabed - Marina on duty at the checkpoint

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Anemones at the Dotan intersection

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

15:10 Ya’bed-Dotan checkpoint

Traffic is light right now. A soldier watches us from on high, in the pillbox (not on the roof). Drivers wave a greeting. A flock of sheep crosses the road in the distance – it’s pastoral.

We return to Barta’a checkpoint. Many people are now coming down the long-sleeve info-icon south of the West Bank. In front of the exit gate, they are questioned briefly: Who are you, where’ve you come from? On the way to Tura checkpoint, we wander a little around the industrial area on the outskirts of the Reihan settlement.

A wonderful view at the outpost near Rihan settlement

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Orchid near Rihan settlement

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Rihan settlement. The coffee house is open on Fridays.

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

We make our annual visit to see the butterfly orchid. We meet with our acquaintance from the isolated house beside the Shaked settlement, who is working here at a factory that has been converted from renovating caravans to building fences. We ask him about the wall being built opposite his house and he confirms what we were told last week – they are now isolated more than ever. There is no eye contact with the village and “the shootings continue,” he grins.

We continue to the “outpost” at the edge of the area. There’s a café there already, but it’s only open on Fridays when volunteers come to work the land and play at being pioneers – a dozen or so hoes are piled up beside the abandoned hut in evidence.

Tura checkpoint

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Tura - Elegant women enter the sleeve

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

16:20 Tura-Shaked checkpoint

Cars pass through with no hold-ups. A few elegant women enter the sleeve info-icon , evidently on their way to a festivity in the West Bank. And the dirt all around doesn’t go away.

Location Description

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).

Ya’abad-Dotan

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This checkpoint is located on road 585, at the crossroads of Mevo Dotan settler-colony / Jenin/ Ya’abad. It has an army watchtower (‘pillbox’ post) and concrete blocs that slow down vehicular traffic. It was erected when Barta’a Checkpoint, lying to the west on the Separation Fence, was privatized and its operation was passed over to civilian security personnel. Since December 2009 this checkpoint enables flow of Palestinian vehicular traffic towards the Barta’a Checkpoint. Seldom is it manned by soldiers sitting in the watchtower, who conduct random inspections of vehicles and passengers. (february 2020)