Barta'a checkpoint: The crossing at the checkpoint is long and inconsiderate

Place:

'Anin

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Tags:

Updates during Corona

Ramadan

Northern checkpoints

Observers:

Neta Golan (Reporting), Adina (photos)Translation: Bracha Ben-Avraham

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May-5-2021

Afternoon

The bridge in front of Zabda

Photo:

Neta Golan

The checkpoint opened last week, but the joy was early. The soldiers closed it again

14:30 – We wanted to see if the checkpoint on the bridge leading towards the village of Zibda which to our surprise was open last week (See report from 27.04.2021) was still open. It was not. The gate was not locked, but the concrete barriers were placed in a way that prevented cars from passing (See photo). A man noticed our surprise, and told us that the soldiers had closed the checkpoint. We asked why they had not reopened it as they had done last week, but he said that the soldiers had opened it and if they would have opened it themselves the soldiers would have shot at them. (?)

14:50 – Reihan- Barta’a Checkpoint, Palestinian Side

The parking lot was not full. People were returning home from work tired, hungry, and thirsty due to the Ramadan fast. It was very hot. A man complained that he and his friends work in Tel Aviv and had arrived at the checkpoint in an Israeli car with their employer, but they were not permitted to cross the checkpoint with him through the vehicle checkpoint. They had to go back and walk all the way down the fenced – in sleeve info-icon . Aren’t they human? He added that at this rate there will never be peace in the world. Don’t they understand that it is difficult for them during Ramadan? We had no answer. We gave another man who was banned from entering Israel without any apparent reason a card with Sylvia’s phone number, wished him luck and Ramadan Kareem.

15:20 – Tura – Shaked Checkpoint The checkpoint was empty, quiet, and dirty. Only one young man crossed to the seamline zone.

15:35 – A’anin Checkpoint

The gates info-icon were open and the soldiers were in their positions. There were no Palestinian farmers. We called our friend M. but he did not answer. We asked the soldiers if a tractor driver and his son had crossed and they said that they had. At 20:00 that evening M. called me back and apologized for not answering. He reported that the soldiers had already let him cross at 14:30. He had gone to sleep and hadn’t heard the phone, and had woken up just before iftar - the evening meal for breaking the fast. Ramadan Kareem.

Why do we take the trouble to report in Corona times as well?

Because democracy’s watchdogs have fallen asleep on their own watch, so Israeli citizens have no idea what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories, especially now.

Day and night, Israeli soldiers (as the State’s emissaries) help extreme settler-colonists take the law into their own hands, unhampered. They do not stop even in days of a raging pandemic and do not hesitate to harm Palestinians – their bodies, property, and sources of livelihood.

Unceasing harassment of the weakened Palestinian population inflicts psychological harm as well. All – from babies through and including the elderly and the ill – are open prey to Jewish violence and terrorism which the settler-colonists are only too eager to exert.

We of MachsomWatch will not cease to report, certainly not now during these Corona times and under the threat of annexation, about the settlers’ increased rampages, those who hurry to set facts on the ground helped by the Israeli army.

Israel rules the West Bank, and by force of the Geneva Convention, article no. 27, it is committed to enforcing law and order there. The inhabitants of these Occupied Territories have the legal right “to decent treatment of their body and dignity, and should be especially protected against any act of violence”.

Ironically, this is not at all upheld.

Nor shall we cooperate with the commonplace ignoring of the Palestinian people’s suffering, and with the Israeli public’s indifference to it. We shall continue to follow up closely and report the goings-on in the West Bank, in its villages and encampments.

No one should be able to say ‘We knew nothing, we heard nothing’

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).