The Northern Checkpoints: The Occupation Is Ticking

Place:

Barta'a-Reihan

Tura-Shaked

Ya'bed-Dotan

Tags:

Updates during Corona

Observers:

Rachel W. and Ruti T. (Reporting and photographer) Marcia L., Translation

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Aug-25-2020

Afternoon

Barta'a checkpoint: extension of the sleeve in the upper parking lot

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

Barta'a checkpoint: Workers returning home to the West Bank at the end of the working day

Photo:

Ruti Tuval

15:05 – Tura-Shaked Checkpoint

The yawning checkpoint is manned by bored soldiers of the military police who are happy to converse with us today. A 4x4 vehicle waits for a young man who arrives from the West Bank. Above the road to the checkpoint, a young boy and his grandmother walk slowly in 34-degree heat. All along the way that leads to the Barta’a Checkpoint - a cleaning operation: full black garbage bags on the side of the road.

15:30 – Crossing Barta’a Checkpoint. The parking lot on the side of the seam area info-icon is full of taxis that bring workers, and from the other side, the Palestinian parking area is totally filled up. We stop at the charming grocery in Umm Rieha. The owner of the grocery, who always sits leisurely behind the counter, asks about Neta, who frequently visits her.

15:55 – Ya’bed-Dotan Checkpoint

Heavy traffic of taxis and different transport vehicles cross without delay. A settler who arrives from Mevo-Dotan stops and asks if everything is O.K. We nod and he travels on.

16:15 – Returning to Barta’a Checkpoint. At the exit, they check our identity cards. We sit in the spacious, tall shed (“the cathedral”) in the northern end (seam area) and look with amazement at all the vehicles unloading many workers, apparently more than their licenses allow. The workers hurry to the sleeve info-icon (the enclosed passage to and from the terminal) that has recently been lengthened. They will cross another three turnstiles and a scorching metal labyrinth from the other side of the terminal. From there, they will continue in crowded taxis to the West Bank settlements. At least they finished their daily work.

16:50 – On the road – Workers get off buses from “Nasa Tours”.

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

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).

Ya’abad-Dotan

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This checkpoint is located on road 585, at the crossroads of Mevo Dotan settler-colony / Jenin/ Ya’abad. It has an army watchtower (‘pillbox’ post) and concrete blocs that slow down vehicular traffic. It was erected when Barta’a Checkpoint, lying to the west on the Separation Fence, was privatized and its operation was passed over to civilian security personnel. Since December 2009 this checkpoint enables flow of Palestinian vehicular traffic towards the Barta’a Checkpoint. Seldom is it manned by soldiers sitting in the watchtower, who conduct random inspections of vehicles and passengers. (february 2020)