Aanin checkpoint: The fence guards do not have a key to the checkpoint

Place:

'Anin

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Problems at agricultural checkpoints

Observers:

Ruti Tuval (photography) and Netta Golan (reporting) Translation: Naomi Halsted

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Dec-6-2022

Morning

A new morning at the Aanin checkpoint

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

06:00 Barta’a-Reihan checkpoint, Seamline Zone side

There are masses of cars parked in the upper parking lot and on the roadside, waiting to drive people to their work. The workers are coming up the sleeve info-icon (the covered and fenced-in walkway) from the terminal to the parking lot. There are only three women among the scores of men. A handful of individuals who worked the night shift are coming down the sleeve towards the terminal. Like them, we’re also walking downwards, against the stream of people coming up. At the entrance to the terminal, we’re told that “it’s OK today.” One person complains he was refused by the police and we give him Sylvia’s information. Another tells us that he was seriously injured in a road traffic accident 20 years ago. He says that a lawyer from Umm el-Fahem took care of the matter, but he only got a small amount of the compensation due to him. We have no idea how we can help. On our way back, we see that business is booming for the settler from Hermesh who runs the kiosk and the garbage bins are full of empty bags from his tasty pastries. As far as we can see, cars are parked in the parking lots close to Zibda. The lot on the other side of the road is empty.

06:50 Anin checkpoint

The checkpoint is already open and dozens of people are striding along the road. They continue to pass through along with a few tractor drivers. Unfortunately, our acquaintance M., who lost his son four weeks ago, is not among them. His nephew tells us that he is still not able to go to work.

At 07:30 the checkpoint is closed. Everyone who has arrived by this time has been allowed through except for one woman who was sent back to Anin. We couldn’t understand why. A few people turn up at the locked gate. The two soldiers who are left to guard the fence don’t have the key. One of them makes a call. We don’t know to whom. Two cars with soldiers in them pass by but they don’t have the key either and they continue on their way. “Guarding the fence,” they tell those waiting to go back home, and they do. Somehow it all happens quietly.

07:30 Tura-Shaked checkpoint

A few children go through on their way to school in Tura. Women cross over to the Seamline Zone. A few men are crossing at this time. One of them complains that the soldiers have time – they talk on the phone instead of letting people through.

7:45: There’s not much traffic and we leave.

Location Description

Anin agricultural checkpoint

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located on the Separation Fence east of the Israeli community Mei Ami and close to the village of Anin in the West Bank. It is opened twice a week, morning and afternoon, for periods of time that are growing shorter Lith time. It is meant for Anin farmers whose olive groves have been separated from the village by the fence. Transit permits are only issued to those who can produce ownership documents for their caged-in land, and sometimes only to the head of the family or his widow, eldest son and children. At times the inheritors lose their right to tend to the family’s land. The permits are eked out and are re-issued only with difficulty. 55-year old persons may cross the checkpoint (into Israel) without special permits. During the olive harvest season (about one month around October) the checkpoint is open every day and more transit permits are issued. Names of persons eligible to cross are held in the soldiers’ computers. In July 2007, a sweeping instruction was issued according to which whoever does not return to the village through this checkpoint in the afternoon will be stripped of his transit permit when he shows up there next time. Since 2019, the checkpoint has not been allways locked with the seam-line zone gate (1 of 3 gates info-icon ), and the fence around it has been broken in several sites.

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).