Aanin checkpoint: opened two hours late!

Place:

'Anin

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Crowding

Hitches at checkpoints

Observers:

Neta Golan, Shuli Bar (photos, report)

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Dec-14-2022

Morning

The constant crowding every morning at the Barta`a checkpoint

Photo:

Shuli Bar

Children’s game – on child counts to three, hiding his face. When he opens his eyes the other children must freeze…

5:50 – 6:35 Barta’a Checkpoints and the snakes

At the entrance to the checkpoints and at the upper car-part, numerous contractor transports drive around and maneuver. From the terminal many workers hurry to be picked up to work in Israel. At the lower car-park, since 4:30 a.m. 3-4 waiting lines curl like snakes towards the entrance of the passage shed. It is filled to bursting. Every 3 minutes the situation changes. They stand, they move. Stand, move. The length of the snaking lines stays for about an hour, for more and more workers keep arriving. Inside the shed we saw only one woman, her neighbors in the line kept their distance. We greeted her and she blew us a kiss. That’s moving… At the side people wait who arrived early but do not wish to crowd. Two youngsters, blacklisted and prevented from entering Israel receive Sylvias card. One of them is a security guard at the checkpoint, earns only 3000 NIS a month and desperate to find work in Israel and live. The second asked for a permit for his brother, also blacklisted. We recommended they first turn to the DCO at Salem and then begin the process. At 6:00 a.m. more people exited the terminal and less people arrived at the checkpoint, so the lines ended.

For two elderly Israeli women like us, the patient atmosphere kept in all this crowding was a wonder.

6:45-8:20 a.m. Anin Agricultural Checkpoint

We arrived about ten minutes early. There were no contractor transports from Israel at the junction, and no traffic at the checkpoint itself. The friendly fence guards had nothing to do. The checkpoint is surrounded with filth. It was opened 2 hours late, at 9:00 a.m. by the Military Police. We called the DCO who immediately hung up on us: “Don’t call here, this is an emergency line!” (Delaying Palestinians isn’t an emergency?) We left before crossing the checkpoint began, and M. updated us.

Toura-Shaked “fabric of life” Checkpoint – Small, deserted and filthy

Usually there is not much traffic here. But surprise!! There’s action today. About seven men and two women exited it one by one, headed for Barta’a. It was a delegation of teachers/supervisors of the Palestinian Board of Education situated in Jenin. Once every 4 months they come to check the state of schooling in Eastern (Palestinian’s) Barta’a.

The bloom of dirt at the Tura checkpoint

Photo:

Shuli Bar

מחסום מרקם חיים טורה-שקד – קטן שומם ומלוכלך

בדרך כלל אין תנועה רבה במחסום זה אך הפתעה, היום אקשן! כשבעה גברים ושתי נשים יצאו ממנו אחד-אחת ופניהם לברטעה. זו משלחת מורים/פקחים ממשרד החינוך הפלסטיני היושבת בג'נין. אחת לארבעה חודשים הם באים לבדוק את מצב החינוך בבתי הספר בברטעה המזרחית.

This group of workers waited two hours for the Anin checkpoint to open

Photo:

Shuli Bar

06:45-08:20 מחסום חקלאי עאנין – איפה המפתח להבנת הכיבוש

הקדמנו בעשר דקות בערך. בצומת לא היו מכוניות של קבלנים מישראל ובמחסום עצמו שום תנועה. אוף. שומרי הגדר הנחלאים החביבים (שתינו נחלאיות במיל!) הסתובבו באפס מעשה. מסביב למחסום זוהמה ולכלוך. המחסום נפתח באיחור של שעתיים, בתשע, בידי המשטרה הצבאית. צלצלנו למת"ק אך הם מייד טרקו את הטלפון בפנינו: "לא לצלצל לכאן זה טלפון חירום!" (כך גם עיכוב הפלסטינים). יצאנו לפני שהמעבר התחיל, ומ' עדכן אותנו.

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).