Tura checkpoint: IDF plastic bags always scattered here around, defined by the soldiers as "Palestinian rubbish"

Share:
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Email
Observers: 
Hannah Heller and Pierre, Driver, Translation Bracha Ben-Avraham 
Feb-27-2020
|
Afternoon

15:30 – 16:40

Tura Shaked Checkpoint – 15:30

Two cars were waiting to cross to the West Bank.  The soldiers arrived and the cars crossed.  Several cars, a tractor, and people crossed in both directions.  A woman returning from shopping in Jenin to her home in Um Reihan told us that she shops in Jenin three or four times a month.   She explained that she is forced to wait a long time at the checkpoint even if it was not crowded.

Two of the soldiers at the checkpoint came to see what we were doing there.  We talked with them and mentioned the piles of garbage at the entrance to the checkpoint.  They claimed that it was left by the Palestinians despite the fact that most of it is IDF plastic bags.  They parted with the claim that they are guarding the country, as opposed to us.

 

Barta’a Checkpoint, 16:05
Dozens of workers were returning to the West Bank from work in Israel.  They stopped at the kiosk to buy cakes and phone cards. 

University students carrying suitcases were returning to Barta’a from the West Bank as well as high school students coming home from school and families with children.  All of them returned through the terminal that was not manned and passed through the  new identification machines.  The workers at the checkpoint were “worried” that I was there and every few minutes another worker arrived to keep an eye on me. 

The sides of the road leading to the checkpoint on the Palestinian side were empty.  Cars used to park here but last week the police began giving fines to drivers who parked here.