Aanin checkpoint: before and after the wall (photos)

05:30 – Aanin Checkpoint

We went to observe the checkpoint before it opened.  We looked painfully at the sunrise and at the brutal wall that blocks the village and the view.

05:45 – Barta’a-Reihan Checkpoint

The junction and the upper parking lot were crowded with people and cars. We drove down and parked on the Palestinian side.  Someone drove by and declared: “this checkpoint is garbage.”    People were walking towards the shed which looks like a corral for cattle.  The right-hand lane is designated only for women, but since there are few women crossing the men are using it.  When a woman arrived we joined her and made way for her, and we also helped a small group of women cross.  The men attempted to let them through but since it was crowded.  After more than 15 years or more of observing the checkpoints we met with sexual harassment.   Three women approached Marina and told her that they had been banned by the special security services and the police.   During the exchange a man approached us and remarked cynically:  “You see, traffic is flowing.”  Had he learned this term from our reports?    We called  the checkpoint office and the woman answered who usually speaks to us politely.  She admitted that  there was only one inspection booth open.

06:50 – Aanin Checkpoint

We arrived just at the huge gate was being opened.  It rests on wheels and is part of the huge separation wall.  It is moved by hand and pushed along a track with wheels.   The soldiers then opened the old yellow gate and began to let people cross in groups of five.  A captain and woman soldier from the armored corps quietly checked documents and baggage.    People complimented them but not the new scenery. (“It’s like living in a prison.”)    as one man put it.    The last young man to cross sighed deeply and asked: “Is this Ben Gvir’s country?” 

We called a phone number that was displayed on an overflowing garbage container.  A man called Aviv thanked us and asked for a photo, which we sent.   He asked us what we were doing at a place like this on the border and cautioned us to be careful and promised they would clean up.  We will see if they really will.

07:45 – Tura–Shaked Checkpoint 

Today the checkpoint once again opened late.  In front of us they were digging the foundations for the continuation of the separation wall that runs from A’anin and will continue to  Baka.  There will no longer be visual contact between the neighborhoods of  Dar al Malik and Radiya.   We are appalled by the double border that is being illegally built on Palestinian land that is supposedly the border with Israel.  

On our way home at Megiddo Junction we stopped at the Salem which is also the District Coordination and Liaison Office, that is slightly south of the checkpoint.  We first visited the village of Salam.  The houses appear to belong to people who are well-off.  We looked southward from the top of a hill at the edge of the village towards the separation wall.   We then drove to the entrance of the District Coordination and Liaison Office   Previously we had visited here to meet with the head of the office or פקדנו את המקום בפגישות עם ראש to attend trials of Palestinians at the military court.  The place had changed over the years and is now open for Israeli Arabs who wish to travel to the West Bank. A small group of people were waiting for the offices to open at 09:30.  Four pleased women from Bosmat Tabun, a Bedouin settlement in Israel,  invited us to join them on their trip to Jenin.  A soldier came over to tell us that we could not cross, which we of course already knew.