Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)

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Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)

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Observers:

Edith M. (translation), Varda Z., (reporting)

Jul-24-2016

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Morning

Dawn, good and bad.

The gates info-icon opened promptly at 3:45. The first workers got through the checkpoint in only three minutes! We asked one of them how long he had been waiting, and he said he arrived at 3:00.

3:51 By the separation barrier: The gates are closed, a man is sent back. By the time we left we saw six people sent back. We didn't manage to speak to any of them to ask what went wrong. Each time someone goes back, the gates are closed to incoming traffic until the person passes back into Palestinian territory.

Between 3:50 and 4:30, at several different moments, we picked people to watch for. A woman got through in four minutes, eight men got through in six to ten minutes. A man told us today was very good, he wished it could always be like this.

At 4:50 we picked three more men to watch for. We walked around to the exit, where we saw that the flow of people coming out was cut off--an unusual occurrence. Shortly people started coming out again, but in smaller numbers. One man we spotted got out after thirty-five minutes; the other two hadn't made it yet when we gave up after forty-five minutes. People paused to complain to us, shouting "Not good" and otherwise expressing anger.

We went again to see what was happening by the separation barrier. There was a line of people waiting, but not a lot of pressure. The problem seemed to be inside the checkpoint. We don't know what happened there today, and the people who use it can't tell us what caused today's jam.

Location Description

Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim)

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The checkpoint is for Palestinians only. It is the main barrier to the passage of workers from the northern West Bank to Israel.
Workers with a permit to work in Israel and also for trade (with appropriate permissions), medicine, and visiting prisoners.
One can cross the checkpoint only on foot. The checkpoint is located north of Road 557 and south of Tulkarm. Operated by a civil security company, opening hours: between 4:00 and 19:00 on weekdays.
As members of Machsom Watch, we began our shifts to this location in 2007.
We arrived before it opened at 4 in the morning and report since, on the harsh conditions and the long and crowded queues of workers. The workers who pass by continue their journey by transportation to work throughout Israel.

In the first period of its activity, about 3,000 and then 5,000 people passed through this checkpoint every day. Due to the small number of checking points and arbitrary delays for long periods of time in the "rooms", workers feared losing their transportation.
Hence workers leave their homes at 2:30 at night to be among the first. Today, 15,000 pass and the transition is faster. Workers are still leaving their homes very early to get past the checkpoint at 7 p.m.

In an adjacent compound, there is a terminal for the transfer of goods on a commercial scale, using the back-to-back method.