EFRAIM CROSSING - Palestinians began using a new high-tech crossing into Israel from the northern West Bank Wednesday, part of Israel's plan to incorporate the checkpoints into its controversial security fence.
Israel hopes the terminal, the first of 11 such points, will protect Israeli security while making the daily passage for tens of thousands of Palestinians more dignified, said Col. Tamir Haiman, the area army commander.
The project is designed to eliminate most contact between Palestinians and Israelis at the crossings.
The Defense Ministry said the 11 checkpoints will cost about NIS 200 million shekels (USD 35.5 million. But one of the first workers to cross complained that new checkpoint appears to make Israel's control of the West Bank permanent.
Even though Israel says it plans to phase out Palestinian labor by 2008, the terminal's expense is a reasonable security cost, Haiman told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
“Three years is a long time," he said. "Any one of them could carry a bomb, which could ruin the whole process and take us back to war."
More than 130 Palestinian suicide bombers have infiltrated from the West Bank and killed hundreds of Israelis during four years of violence.
Roadblocks, set up to stop the bombers, have created constant friction between soldiers and large crowds of frustrated and angry Palestinians, who are often held up for hours.
The checkpoints themselves have become targets, and some officers say they often create more problems than they solve. Captured bombers have cited the humiliation at roadblocks as a motive for launching attacks.
According to Israeli human rights group B'tselem, the number of checkpoints in the West Bank has dropped from 73 to 29 in the past year, while 24 checkpoints have cropped up along the line between Israel and the West Bank.
The barrier is supposed to stop the bombers and could lead to removal of more roadblocks. But Palestinians complain that in some places, the route of the barrier dips into the West Bank to encircle some Israeli settlements.
The new "Efraim" Checkpoint at the exit of the town of Tul Karm employs five times as many personnel than the one it replaces.
Crossing point procedure
Osama Amar, 30, said he crosses into to Israel daily to work as a house painter. On his first trip through the new checkpoint, he passed through a metal detector, following signs and directions from a soldier in a bulletproof booth.
Next, Amar spent four minutes under a magnetic resonance scan monitored from a control room upstairs.
Then an inspector used biometric technology to match Amar's new magnetic ID card to the back of his hand.
Had he raised suspicion, he would have been directed by intercom to enter a new blast-proof cell, Haiman said.
Last month a similar setup detected a female suicide bomber who had planned on blowing herself up at an Israeli hospital, where she had an appointment to meet with a doctor. The woman was trying to smuggle explosives in her underwear while entering into Israel from Gaza.
Exiting the checkpoint's cool covered interior, Amar complained, "The new design just seems to institutionalize Israel's occupying position." A father of four, Amar said he makes 10 times more money in Israel than he would in the West Bank
.
His long-term goal is that “one day Jews will not live on this land," he says.
