The separation wall's route creates enclaves within the West Bank. Their combined area is the designated "seam zone", which lies between the separation wall and the Green Line (the 1967 borders). Palestinians who live inside the seam zone have been put under a permit regime, restricting their movement within the wall-dissected West Bank. This situation exists although the seam zone is not a separate unit: its habitants maintain close ties with the rest of the West Bank population – encompassing areas of family, education, economy and health among others.
In August 2010,
HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) on behalf of a youth living in Barta'a ash Sharqiya, a village west of the separation wall, inside the seam zone. Each time the petitioner sets for the east side of the wall, and back west, he has to pass through the Reihan crossing. Since May 2010, the petitioner has been detained almost daily at the crossing by the crossing operators – both soldiers and private security guards. On each occasion he was detained for periods of 20 minutes up to three hours. During the delay the petitioner was led to a small room, ordered to strip off his cloths, and wait in his underwear for security personnel who then performed a manual search of his person. When the procedure ended, the petitioner was allowed to continue on his way. On his asking the reason for being detained, he was answered at times that such are the dictates of the Israel Security Agency (ISA), at other times, he received no answer.
Early this year, the petitioner was summoned to an ISA interrogation, during which, the interrogator offered him to provide information on illegal aliens in Barta'a ash Sharqiya, in return for whatever assistance he names, such as, issuing him an entry permit to Israel. The petitioner declined the offer. This is not the first time HaMoked comes across the practice of offering permits subject to cooperation.
At the end of July, HaMoked appealed to the legal adviser for the West Bank, requesting his intervention to stop the delays and degradations suffered by the petitioner. As no reply came forth, and given the petitioner's daily inflictions, HaMoked had no recourse but to petition the HCJ.
The petition asserted that the petitioner's freedom of movement and his livelihood were severely jeopardized, as the delays and degradations at the passage caused him to considerably limit the number of times he sets out of Barta'a ash Sharqiya. It is unacceptable to subject a person to daily delays and degradations each time he passes from one part of an occupied territory to the other.
In its
response, the state representative argued that the military is entitled to conduct security checks at the Reihan crossing, since entry from the seam zone into Israel is unchecked by any physical barrier, further claiming that "there is concern that the petitioner is liable to use his passages through the barriers to transport weapons". However, on the date of the response, the state attorney's office applied to cancel the hearing in the petition, in view of a current decision that no "exceptional search procedures would be taken against the petitioner at the crossing". The parties agreed that HaMoked would monitor the petitioner's passages at the checkpoint until November 2010, followed by HaMoked's updating notice to the court.
