Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked
The Routine of Life with the Checkpoints: If the soldiers are not too late, if they don’t yell and also if the computer works, then today “everything is OK.”
Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint
05:55 – We arrive. In the parking lot, many who already passed through, wait for transportation. Everyone reports that everything is OK. A steady stream of workers come up from the terminal, to their work in the seamline zone and Israel. We go down to the entrance of the terminal from the Palestinian side. The parking lot is full of cars. The trucks that are laden with merchandise, wait for the start of the inspection. The private cars enter the inspection at the automobile checkpoint.
The line of those entering the terminal is very orderly. There is no pushing, the workers arrive and immediately stand in the line that moves all the time. O. is still there and watches over the orderliness with the help of two assistants who actually have nothing to do because everyone is satisfied and controls himself in line. O. told us that he arrives at 05:00 in the morning and stays until 07:00.
50-60 people pass each time the carousel is opened; after a very short break it is opened again.
Inside the installation itself, the inspections are quick and it is reported that it takes about 10 minutes from the entrances to the exit. Next to the kiosk of the settlers there is a line of Palestinian workers who wait for “coffee and a pastry.”
We leave and travel to the next checkpoint.
Tura-Shaked Checkpoint
06:55 – The representatives of the District Coordination Office (DCO) are already here. There are no soldiers.
07:05 – The soldiers arrive in a civilian minibus.
A car arrives with workers who are returning from their night shift at a carpet factory in the industrial area next to Shaked but the passage hasn’t yet begun. The soldiers chatter among themselves despite the fact that from two sides of the checkpoint people are waiting to pass in order to arrive at their work in time. Three cars arrive from the seamline zone in order to cross to the other side of the checkpoint. The drivers park their cars and enter by foot for the document inspection.
07:16 – Three of the drivers are checked and now they wait in the line of cars for the automobile inspection. Three of the teachers go out first and quickly enter the transportation that is waiting to take them to their place of work.
The computer works today and therefore the passage is quicker. The first cars go out, children arrive and pass to schools in Tura—without inspection.