The northern checkpoints: the beautiful of nature versus the ugliness of humans

15:00 – 16:30

Barta’a Checkpoint
Many laborers return from their work in Israel and the Seamline Zone and go down the long sleeve (enclosed path) to the terminal. Many young people cut short the long passage and jump over the fence of the sleeve. We ask about the crossing this morning, and they tell us that the passage at about 06:00 took between 15 and 45 minutes, and there was no crowding.

Students, residents of Barta’a, which is in the Seamline Zone and who work the second shift, pass from the West Bank to the Seamline Zone.

Tura Checkpoint
The Border Patrol who operate the checkpoint leave the checkpoint to greet us and to make sure that “everything is OK.”

Cars pass quickly in two directions. Women, children, and young people who leave for work arrive from the West Bank to the Seamline Zone by vehicles or by foot. One of the young people tells us that this morning because the checkpoint opened late -- 07:15 at best--vehicles and people crowded in front of the checkpoint (on the West Bank side). This situation primarily hurts the passage of teachers who arrive from the West Bank and who teach in the Palestinian villages in the Seamline Zone; most of them are late for school.

Laborers return from work in the Seamline Zone and from Israel; those who return from Israel left in the morning via a distant Barta’a Checkpoint because the Tura Checkpoint opened late.

We travel in this beautiful, wooded area surrounded by security roads that cut off the forest and continue along the frightful separation wall whose building continues to be completed.

We met our acquaintance, M., and bought olive oil from him. He succeeded in transferring the containers of oil with an acquaintance who has a tractor and, by himself, made the long distance through checkpoints, a long way from his home, in order to meet us and successfully sell his agricultural goods.