Aanin checkpoint: the separation wall hides everything but not the occupation

Place:

'Anin

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Border Police

Walls and Blockades

Observers:

Neta G. and Ruthi T. (Report and Photographs); Pierre, driver, who helps translate Marcia L., Translation

Aug-9-2023

Morning

Pass the Aanin checkpoint into the seam zone area

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Aanin checkpoint: the tractors leave at the end of the crossing

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

מחסום עאנין: סגור, ובקרוב גם לא יפתח בכלל

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Tura checkpoint: working on the separation wall

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

The North, 09.08.2023

05:55 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint

Seamline Zone side. The intersection and the parking lot are full of people and transport shuttles among them. We went down the sleeve info-icon (the enclosed path to the terminal) to the entrance of the terminal. Many workers arrive from the West Bank; most hurry to their work in Israel. The clicking of the turnstile doesn’t stop for a minute. No one complains about the crossing.

06:55 – Tura-Shaked Checkpoint

Soldiers from the border police arrive at 07:00 and make an announcement that the checkpoint will only open at 07:30 because there is a drill going on. After we begged them, they allowed a female driver--obviously a doctor or a nurse at the hospital in Jenin—to pass through. At 07:15, others also began to cross in two directions.

07:30 – Anin Checkpoint

At the intersection that leads to the checkpoint, many young people wait for their employers. From further up the road, it is possible to see some houses at the top of the highest hill in Jenin. As we approach the checkpoint, the whole village is hidden behind the separation wall. It is difficult to become accustomed to this brutal offense to one of the most beautiful views in the northern West Bank. We came around the checkpoint’s closing time. Five tractors pass through the checkpoint. After them, the huge gate of the wall was closed. The soldiers left but the gate that was open to the “system” road remained open and a truck crossed it in an eastern direction. A garbage dumpster that was placed there when the soldiers guarded day and night against a breakthrough in the fence, is still overflowing. Two weeks ago, the owner promised to empty it immediately. Since guarding the checkpoint was canceled, as mentioned above, the wall was erected.

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).