'Anin, Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked

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Observers: 
Rachel Weizman and Hassida Shafran, reporting. Translation: Bracha Ben-Avraham
Feb-11-2019
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Afternoon

 

A’anin Agricultural Checkpoint12 people were already waiting for the soldiers to open the three gatesinfo-icon to the checkpoint.  Lately the gate facing the seamline zone has remained open.  The soldiers arrived at exactly 15:15 – on time.  There were no tractors today and no one was carrying anything across.  Two women soldiers walked down to open the two gates on the side of the village that are not visible from the place where we stood.  One of the soldiers stood in back of the concrete roadblock.  The people crossed one after the other.

Tura–Shaked: “Fabric of Life” Checkpoint

This term implies that there are a lot of reasons for Palestinians to cross here.  School children cross here to the village of Tura and students and teachers cross to the university in Jenin.  Teachers and workers cross to the seamline zone to the industrial area near the three settlements nearby.  This checkpoint is filled with equipment and facilities for regulating traffic: spikes on the road, stop lights, and an inspection facility and steel gate.  But the most noticeable thing is the garbage container that is always overflowing and the surrounding garbage that hides the flowers.

The Main Checkpoint: Barta’a Reihan Many workers cross through this checkpoint to Barta’a from the West Bank.  Until a few months ago thousands of construction workers who work in Israel building the city of Harish, but lately these numbers have decreased as people are forced to cross through at other checkpoints. 

About two weeks ago we approached the managers of the checkpoint to ask them to build a shelter from the rain for people who are walking from the fenced-in passage to the parking lot.  They promised to look into the matter and that it would be taken care of.  The issue is still being looked into…. Soon the problem will no longer be the rain but the hot summer sun.   

The parking lot is already emptying out but there has been a traffic jam along the road between the two small parking lots.  We passed it but did not understand what was going on.  Yaabed checkpoint was completely quiet.  There might have been soldiers in the watchtower there.

We drove back to the parking lot at Barta’a and learned that the traffic jam had been caused by vehicles that were being inspected on the road to the west next to Hermesh.   We will drive there when we are on our next shift.