Checkpoint in Ratea: "Open early at four in the morning!"

Place:

'Anin

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Crowding

Olive Harvest

Observers:

Hagar Dror Maliniak (camera), Adina (guest), Neta Golan (reporter)

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Nov-23-2022

Afternoon

Returning home from the harvester through the Aanin checkpoint

Photo:

Hagar Dror

Aanin checkpoint: returning home from a day's work

Photo:

Hagar Dror

14:00 Tura-Shaked checkpoint

Two boys and two girls in striped uniform dresses are coming home from school in Tura, which is on the other side of the checkpoint. The traffic is light in both directions. One of the people passing through is an older man wearing a red keffiyeh. The voice of the muezzin can be heard. An English-speaking Palestinian driver stops near us. He wants to talk. He’s really angry with Israel, which doesn’t listen to anyone, not even the Americans. He says the checkpoint is on land owned by his family. He lives in Ya’bed in the West Bank further down the road, but his family is in Daher el Maleh in the Seamline Zone. He complains that the checkpoint is closed in the evening and that women in labor and people in need of medical care have to go the long way round at night, to the checkpoint at Barta’a, and that there too, at night, it’s a hassle to get through.

14:40 Barta’a Reihan checkpoint, Seamline Zone Side

A large number of people are already returning from their daily work at this time. We meet the seamstresses who work at the sewing factory in Barta’a. We’ve known them for a long time and they are happy to meet us. One of the security guards talks to us through the fence of the sleeve info-icon (covered walkway leading to and from the terminal). He warns us that all the people walking through the sleeve are Palestinians. People complain about the congestion this morning, which was particularly bad because the Jalameh checkpoint in the north had been closed after the body of an Israeli Druze who was injured and died in a road traffic accident near Jenin was abducted. Someone tells us that the women suffer particularly from the congestion because men push up against them and squeeze them. They say that people arrive at 3:00 a.m., even 2:30 a.m., even though the checkpoint opens at 4:30 a.m. They ask for it to be opened earlier at 4:00. On our way back, we come across something we haven’t seen before. A security guard stops a group of young people coming down the sleeve and takes their I/D cards. They are familiar with the scenario. After a short time, the cards are returned to their owners and they continue on their way.

Later, Hagar calls the checkpoint and speaks with one of the workers there. He says he will pass on the request to open the checkpoint at 4:00 to his superiors at the Ministry of Defense. We’ll see.

15:30 Anin checkpoint

People and laden tractors are already waiting at the entrance to the checkpoint. Soldiers guard the fence 24/7 in 12-hour shifts. Military police are also here. They open the middle gate but half close the gate leading to the Seamline Zone so that the people are made to go through one by one. When a tractor arrives, they open the gate wide.

Our acquaintance M., who lost his son, an officer in the Palestinian police, two weeks ago is still not capable of going to his land, but we meet one of his sons with the tractor.

15:50: The soldiers opened the checkpoint early and they want to close early too. We ask them to wait for everyone to come back from their lands and from work. In the meantime, people are arriving and getting through. 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).