Barta'a-Reihan, Tura-Shaked
15:30 – Tura Checkpoint
The checkpoint is quiet and empty as usual; the soldiers sit, bored, in the shed. One car waits for those returning from Jenin. A woman from Daher al Maleck returns from Jenin, loaded with packages. We take her home. She tells us she left in the morning and passed through the checkpoint with no problem.
16:00 – Barta’a Checkpoint
We expected that the activities at the checkpoint would be meager because of the notice that was publicized last week: the workers who left on Sunday, 28.06, would have to remain in Israel for a period of three weeks, including lodging. We found the checkpoint was almost fully active. The parking lots were full of vehicles. The workers that returned from work in Israel told us that because they did not find places to sleep, they are returning home; tomorrow they will leave again.
New transportation arrangements: Workers and most of those who pass through (the checkpoint) leave their vehicles next to the shed in the upper parking lot. There the new sleeve
begins (the enclosed passage to and from the checkpoint). Men, women, and children from Barta’a, cross to the West Bank. Several young people who are prohibited from passing through to Israel by the General Security Services-- turned to us and we referred them to Sylvia’s staff. One young man told us that his father is old and isn’t able to work anymore in his agricultural plot. He, the man’s son, hasn’t succeeded in obtaining a permit to cross the agricultural checkpoint (a short cut that greatly decreases the way to the field) because the plot is not listed under his name; only under his father’s name.