Barta`a chekpoint: severe overcrowding in the mornings

Place:

'Anin

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Crowding

Olive Harvest

Seam Zone

Observers:

Hanna Heller and Hagar Dror with Pierre the driver. Guest: Michal

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Nov-9-2022

Afternoon

Barta`a checkpoint: : returning home from work in Israel

Photo:

Hagar Dror

Tura checkpoint: returning to the village from the harvester in the seam zone

Photo:

Hagar Dror

Marcia L., Translation

For almost two years, I have been an active member of Machsom Watch, and for most of those years, I have been accompanied by Hannah and sometimes Neta. Throughout this time, we meet with M., at Anin Checkpoint, and I buy olive oil from him for people who order it through me. This morning, M. notified me that he will not be there. His son, a young man of 27, an officer in the Palestinian police, was killed last night. We were unsuccessful in finding out who killed him, but how sad it is that a young life was cut down. We share the family’s sorrow.

15:15 - Barta’a- Reihan Checkpoint

Only a few people walk down the roofed and enclosed path that leads to the terminal (the sleeve info-icon ). At about 15:30, the stream of those returning from work in Israel and the Seamline Zone grows. People complain to us that crossing the checkpoint during the morning hours takes a long time (from half an hour to an hour), and there is great crowding for the last two weeks between 05:30 to 06:30.

In addition, for some reason, among the 12 crossing stations which check the magnetic cards, only four are working.

Female students from Jenin and workers from the West Bank, leave for work on the second shift.

15:50 – Anin Checkpoint

The checkpoint is already open; only two tractors and a few workers return to the village from the olive harvest and the passage is quick. Apparently, according to one of the soldiers who opened the checkpoint at 12:00, this is because of the rain today.

Five soldiers (male and female) from the Extrication and Rescue Unit are standing next to the gate. Today they behave pleasantly to us and are interested in what we are doing here.

Tura Checkpoint

Quiet, as usual. A family arrives on a horse-drawn cart. Women enter the enclosed “sleeve” on the way to inspection, and the man crosses with the cart and horse.

On the way back, the setting sun and the clouds create a spectacularly colorful scene of Palestine.

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).