Aanin checkpoint: closed! And will only open twice a year!!!

06:00–07:40 Barta’a checkpoint: Hundreds and thousands of workers are walking up the long sleeve from the terminal to the upper parking lot in the seamline zone. There isn’t enough room in the parking lot for all the workers, taxis and cars that are congregating there, so many of the cars drive on to the junction and park beside the road to Harish (route 611). The workers have to walk to the cars or else they sit on the sidewalks and wait.

One of the men crossing into Israel tells us that he reached the checkpoint at 3:30 a.m. It opened at 4:00, but only one conveyor belt was working and the checkpoint was jam-packed with people. Because of the crowding, the checkpoint was closed every ten minutes and he got through only at 5:00. The second conveyor started working later, at 6 o’clock, when the workers began going out to the seamline zone. We’re told that on Sunday (yesterday), “it was the worst of all.” Due to overcrowding at the checkpoint, about 300 workers turned back home as they weren’t able to get through in time for their work in Israel. They told us that there are also problems checking fingerprints in the monitoring machines.

We met an old acquaintance who works in the Shahak industrial park (in the seamline zone). He said that by that time you can get through quite quickly and indeed at 6:30 there’s less congestion in the parking lot and on the roads. There are also workers coming back in the opposite direction, from the seamline zone to the West Bank after the night shift.

Tura-Shaked checkpoint: The road beside the checkpoint (in the seamline zone) has been widened and, for a change, most of the garbage has been cleared away and movement is safer now. Around 40 workers are waiting on the West Bank side. At 07:10, the first worker emerges into the seamline zone. Palestinian cars are travelling in both directions. Junior high school kids cross into the West Bank through the inspection room. In the past, there was an agreement that schoolgirls and boys would go round and not through the inspection room.

We did not go to the Anin agriculture checkpoint, which for years used to be opened twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. The army checked it out and decided that for the farmers from the village who no longer cultivate vegetables there and grow olives only, it’s enough for the checkpoint to be opened twice a year –during the olive harvest and when the farmers need to plow and prune the trees. We met residents of Anin at Barta’a checkpoint. One of them told us that about a year ago (which we reported frequently), for a short period, residents of Anin who worked in Israel and the seamline zone were also allowed to leave through the agricultural checkpoint (near to the village). Recently, as we have reported, the courts are hearing an appeal by residents of the village to let them cross every day to the seamline zone so they can cultivate additional crops on their land. The army opposes the request and argued that they don’t go through this checkpoint for agricultural work. As proof of this, the army’s representative presented the court with drone pictures taken at that time, showing the movement of these non-agricultural workers going through to Israel with permits.