'Anin, Mevo Dotan (Imriha), Reihan, Shaked, Thu 4.11.10, Morning

Place:

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

'Anin

Ya'bed-Dotan

Tags:

Soldiers at checkpoints

Observers:

Observers: Neta G., Shula B. (reporting and photographing)

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Nov-4-2010

Morning

Translator: Charles K.

06:25 A’anin checkpoint
Why do you come here, a seven-year-old Bedouin girl waiting for a ride to school asks curiously.
What are you doing here, anyway, especially before 7 in the morning, asks one of the soldiers at the checkpoint, with hostility.

The final days of the olive harvest. There are still farmers complaining to us their children still haven’t gotten permits to help them pick. The harvest is a family operation, but it’s more important for the Occupation to show contempt for Palestinian traditions instead of honoring them.
Now we can see oil at the checkpoints, and problems connected to getting it through.
These days, about 150 people cross at A’anin every morning. During the olive harvest, the checkpoint is open every day. Soon it will go back to being open only twice a week, even though work in the olive groves won’t be completed for a few more months!

06:50 Shaked checkpoint
Very heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic at the checkpoint. A soldier in the concrete bunker in the middle of the checkpoint, cut off from reality. Wrapped in a tallit, praying. Swaying as required.

A tractor loaded with olive wood for heating is sent back. These are cuttings that pile up in the groves at the end of the harvest. He wants to bring them through the checkpoint, for heating and cooking.
Forbidden!
The checkpoint’s female MP explains, “Cutting down olive trees is prohibited!”, while Abas, the DCO representative, says that a decision hasn’t yet been made. How much discussing and considering and wasting time is necessary for this? Why make things more and more difficult?
A minibus arrives, 26 small children who go to school in Tura, on the West Bank get out.
How could they all fit?
They fit. They fit. They’re crammed in.

A resident of the seam zone has 90 cans of oil to bring into the seam zone from the olive press on the West Bank. He’s not allowed to bring more than five a day, so he shows up daily and brings five across. He can bring them all in at one time through the Reihan checkpoint, which is far away, but he’d have to pay NIS 400 transport costs, which he doesn’t have.

A little boy, two years old, Amir, runs toward us through the checkpoint. The female MP runs after her, then understands someone is waiting for himon this side. Her father brought him from Tura to the checkpoint, and his uncle is taking him to his grandmother in Dahar al Malek. The youngest independent checkpoint user.

07:55 Dothan checkpoint
A Hummer parked in the middle of the checkpoint, soldiers standing around it, and for ten long minutes don’t let through any of the cars that are showing up on both sides. Then they let all of them through without inspection. Heavy vehicle traffic. A tattered Israeli flag flies again from the heights of the pillbox. Israeli flags wear out quickly here.

08:20 Reihan checkpoint
Lower parking lot: People enter and go through the fenced corridor leading to the terminal, where there’s a traffic jam. No one goes in. They stand outside a long time.
Landscaping and exterior design work has also reached the Palestinian parking lot – designs based on backgammon are everywhere, and a vine has been sent to climb the canopy over the waiting area, where the unemployed drivers usually snooze.
Upper parking lot: Many taxis (minibuses) wait for clients who aren’t exiting the terminal. People who do come out complain there are hundreds within. One hour. Two hours. The checkpoint administration – say they’re taking steps with respect to the crowding.
We saw no improvement by the time we left at 9.
Just inside the entrance to the terminal, two people who were in Israel without permits are waiting for their sentences – will they be sent home, or arrested. Meanwhile, they’ve been sitting here an hour.

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).

Ya’abad-Dotan

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This checkpoint is located on road 585, at the crossroads of Mevo Dotan settler-colony / Jenin/ Ya’abad. It has an army watchtower (‘pillbox’ post) and concrete blocs that slow down vehicular traffic. It was erected when Barta’a Checkpoint, lying to the west on the Separation Fence, was privatized and its operation was passed over to civilian security personnel. Since December 2009 this checkpoint enables flow of Palestinian vehicular traffic towards the Barta’a Checkpoint. Seldom is it manned by soldiers sitting in the watchtower, who conduct random inspections of vehicles and passengers. (february 2020)