A body charged with overseeing civilian life in the territories. The DCO is the all-powerful bureaucratic arm of the occupation and, far from sight, it behaves with a violence that is cruel and sophisticated. It occupies a position of absolute power and its authority increases in direct proportion to the extent of its arbitrary behaviour. The DCO is charged with issuing passage permits that let people move around and yet other permits to work or enter Israel. Only if they have such permits (and then only after overcoming certain other difficulties) can Palestinians contrive to leave their own homes and move around the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, get work, stay in touch with their families, get to university, or hospital etc.

Whereas a `closure' (q.v.) imposed on the territories prevents Palestinians from coming into Israel, `encirclement' totally closes off every town and village there – nobody comes in, and nobody leaves. And to make all this more effective, the army destroys approach roads to the villages, or renders them impassable with huge cement blocks, deep ditches and high mounds of earth. Necessity means that alternative routes are developed, roads so full of potholes as to wreck the Palestinians' cars – but worse than this: to create deep hatred and a sense of all-pervading frustration. As one checkpoint commander put it: “They know there's an encirclement, so it's better if they all stay at home”.

GatesBecause the `separation fence' follows such an absurd route, it has been necessary to install a number of gates that let children go to their schools and permit farmers access to their fields (q.v. `seam area'). In actual practice, it is the army that controls these gates and opens and closes them as it sees fit. Thus, for example, during the olive harvest, it is the army which determines the hours when the gates will open and close and thus exactly how long the olive-harvest season can last. In many areas, the Palestinians have simply been forbidden to work their lands at any point in the year, a prohibition whose effect is already visible in the run-down state of the olive groves.

ProcedureThe term for the confiscation by the army of a Palestinian family's house; the family is allocated some small space, generally a room, but is denied almost all communication with the outside world.

The Hebrew acronym is shabahim, literally translated as `persons staying illegally'. People with Palestinian ID cards staying in Israel without having the proper permits. They are the victims of the arbitrary policies governing the issuing of permits and of the total suspension of the family reunification schemes. When an `illegal' is caught, he is required to complete and sign a lengthy personal questionnaire, all in Hebrew, in which he will be asked a great many detailed questions about his stay in Israel including, for example, the names of those who employed him and where he stayed overnight, etc. On a separate page, he will be asked to sign an undertaking not to repeat his `offence' and must also post a guarantee of several thousand shekels. Getting caught a second time will land the `illegal' in jail.In Abu-Dis, the Military Police turn a blind eye to those slipping through from the Palestinian side of the `separation wall' into Jerusalem, but they wait in ambush to catch the `illegals' on their way home again.

Palestinians who live in the `seam' area (q.v.), i.e. west of the new `separation fence' and east of the Green Line, must obtain permits from the Civil Administration enabling them to go through the checkpoints into and out of the `seam' area. In other words, they need permits to continue living in their own homes. The permits are given for a limited time only and when they expire new application must be made. They are not automatically given to everyone who meets the necessary criteria and even those who have valid permits (q.v. tasrich – passage permit) can find themselves detained at the checkpoints from time to time. In legal terms their personal status – i.e. their citizenship, family status, claim to ownership of land etc. – is by no means clear-cut. Within this category of person are also included the spouses of Israeli citizens – they hold Palestinian ID cards yet are living in Israel. As we have already noted, the family reunification scheme has been suspended in the wake of deliberately slanted bureaucratic problems and, most recently, by a racist law passed by the Knesset.

Those caught evading the checkpoints by walking over the hillsides (and thus sparing themselves the checkpoint detentions, harassment, and sheer daily waste of time) are called `drippers' or `leakers'. Punishment for this `offence' is several hours of detention at the checkpoint.

These, according to the soldiers, constitute the permanent hassle facing them at the checkpoints, and within the term are included journalists, photographers, Arab Knesset members, demonstrators, members of human rights organizations, and especially the women of MachsomWatch. In short, a leftie is anyone who wants to see and know about what's going on. `The lefties have destroyed the army!' proclaimed a sign that for months on end decorated the Huwwara checkpoint.

It looks like an expression of affection, but let no one be deceived: it is an expression of unassailable control and superiority. The checkpoints are the most frequently encountered instruments of control throughout the territories, so common are they that they seem to have penetrated into the very bloodstream of the soldiers, so that this is how the commander of a checkpoint will refer to it: “This is my checkpoint and you're not going to tell me how to do my job”.

ProcedureThis is a much criticized procedure whereby ordinary Palestinian civilians – neighbours – are used to act as a human shield protecting the soldiers when, for example, it is deemed necessary to break into a Palestinian home. The Israeli High Court has condemned the practice but, whether because it has become a habit or because it is simply convenient, the `neighbour procedure' is still in use and has even been adopted at the checkpoints. We have observed it at the Beit Iba checkpoints, but it is apparently also used at others, too: The soldiers, fed up with running around on the hillside in pursuit of those who try to evade the checkpoint, pick out one of the detainees (q.v.) – whose ID card they have tucked away for safe keeping in someone's pocket – and order him to take off into the hills and locate and catch the `leakers' (q.v.) and bring them in to the checkpoint. And what happens if the young man takes off into the hills and decides not to turn in his friends, his neighbours, his classmates, and instead leaves them alone to evade the checkpoint as best they can? Don't worry, the Israeli army is not made up of idiots. High up in his observation tower there's a soldier armed with a special pair of field glasses through which he can see all the `leakers'. But why should he run around after them? Let the Arab chap do it for him. The chosen detainee may not know for sure that there's a soldier in the look-out tower, but he does know that if he doesn't do what's wanted of him, his ID number will remain hidden there, deep down in the GSS files, and with it he will have buried his livelihood, the welfare of his family, his studies, his health. One can but speculate on what damage this vicious practice does to the in-any-case fragile fabric of Palestinian society.