Tora-Shaked checkpoint: delay in opening the gates

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Observers: 
Hagar D. and Hannah H. Marcia L., Translation
Aug-25-2021
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Morning

05:45 – 08:00

05:45, Highway 611
The coffee station is in place and the east Barta’a junction wakes up to take in workers who arrive from the breaches in the separation fence.  Workers stream in from two holes next to the village of Kalkis to a convoy of cars that wait for them on the sides of the highway.

06:00 – Barta’a Checkpoint
In the upper parking lot workers wait like every day, for transportation. They arrive from the lower parking lot, enter the terminal, and exit the long sleeveinfo-icon (the enclosed passage to and from the terminal) in the direction of the upper parking lot.  Some of them stop for a cup of coffee at the kiosk in the middle of the sleeve.  Workers leaving the terminal complain to us that they are delayed for a long time in the crowded inspection rooms.

06:30 – Anin Agricultural Checkpoint
Next to the gate, M., his son, and his tractor are already waiting (the only ones who pass through the checkpoint twice a week, despite many who pass through every day via the large breach in the fence).  At 06:45 the soldiers passed through in a hurry in the direction of Tayibe-Rumana Checkpoint and only return at 07:00 (a delay of 30 minutes) to open the checkpoint for M.

07:30 – Tura-Shaked Checkpoint
The checkpoint only opens at 07:00, a delay of half an hour.  Workers exit, some of them by foot and some via transits, to workplaces.  Three teachers from the West Bank pass through to teach in East Barta’a’s elementary school, where 180 pupils study.  There is also a high school in the city. We met the girls who pass cross from the Seamline Zone to the girls’ school in Ya’bed, a student who crossed to school in Jenin, and three children who study at the elementary school in Ya’bed.

A resident of Daher al Malec who arrived in a vehicle from the West Bank, complains to us that the soldiers delay him now because they take a food break (even though the checkpoint is opened only at 07:00).

Likewise, the residents complain that the girls who cross to go to school, are checked in the closed inspection room, sometimes by male and not female soldiers.  That is considered to be immodest and something that very much insults and embarrasses them.

Six cars cross from the West Bank to the Seamline Zone and two cars cross to the West Bank.  The passage is now quick.