Weekly Digest 9.12-15.12.07

Bethlehem area.

Sunday AM, 9.12.07

Bethlehem
CP, 07:00: Lines are short, 6 booths open. People emerging report very short lines
and no special problems.

Ezyon
DCL,
08:00 Quite a few people waiting for
permits. The line proceeds rapidly. 2
men approach us about their security problem.

Tuesday, 11.12.07, AM

06:40,
Bethlehem CP. As usual, hell on the Palestinian side, quite orderly on
the Israeli side; 6 checking posts open. Around 07:40 the pressure was
alleviated. A man had his permit confiscated, no reason given. We called the IDF Humanitarian Center again
and again for an explanation, with no result.

08:00,
Ezyon DCL. Almost empty.

Wednesday AM , 12.12.07

Bethlehem
CP,
06:40. 6 stations open. Short queues.However, 2 Ecumenical observers
who came from say there are yet many, many people waiting to enter, although the
CP opened at 05:00. Apparently the metal
detectors are working very slowly.

Ezyon
DCL,
08:40. The office is open, though those
with police business must wait until 11:00, according to a posted sign. A 35 year old woman from Bethlehem tells us
that she works in a hospital in east Jerusalem and seeks a renewal of her
permit. She was sent here from Bet El,
and now is told to return to Bet El. We get the attention of the soldier, who
asks her where she lives and what she does.
When he learns that she is a nurse, he invites her in, and in a short
time she receives her permit.

Wednesday
PM, 12.12.07
A
beautiful day. We first drove to Nebi
Yunis, with a single set of returned documents.
Haya O. says the number of documents are decreasing, as the difficulties
imposed by the authorities for helping out in these matters
increase.

Ezyon
DCL: Not a soul in sight.

Bethlehem
CP: Two long lines of workers queuing up all the
way to the main road. Inside, 4 stations
open for checking. Civilian security
guards maintaining order. The occasional rude barking from the booths, but by
and large the queues move fast. We timed
one individual at 7 minutes from joining he queue to passing the
booth.

Abu
Dis Area


Monday
AM, 10.12.07

07:00,
Sheikh Saed. The main activity is
a major cleanup effort on the part of 2 BPs. Most passers are kids of all ages
going to school. The soldiers are correct.

Abu
Dis. Not a mouse to be
seen.

Olives
Terminal.
The people coming through are bitter about the lack of any decent regular means
of transportation on the Israeli side.

Container
CP. No queue.
One detainee inside the CP.

Tuesday
PM, 11.12.07

Olives
terminal,
14:15. Few people heading in either
direction, or all seemed to be going well. The interior is now totally blocked
from view.

Abu
Dis. We passed a flying CP. Abu Dis is a ghost town. In the Moskowitz
settlement we saw no sign of activity.

Sheikh
Saed. The soldier's inspection booth was moved to
the opposite side of the road. The
boulders that used to block entry have been removed and, theoretically, it would
be possible to drive into Sheikh Said (for the first time in years). 6 personnel
there -- 4 private security guards and 2 BP, but while we were there, not one
person passed in either direction!

Container
CP. so much traffic! Hundreds of vehicles headed toward Bethlehem
and about a third of that heading the other direction. At the same time,
hundreds of workers returning home descended upon the CP. One singularly thoughtful BP was checking
workers' IDs, waving cars through, checking a bus and generally maintaining the
CP. Shortly 2 BPs joined to help
him.

Nablus
Area
Sunday, 9.12.07, PM
15:00,
Zaatara (Tapuach) Junction. Empty in all
directions.

Yitzhar-Huwwara
Junction. Army
roadblock checking Israeli vehicles, probably following the colonist projects
foreseen for today.

15:15,
Huwwara. X-Ray truck active - situated conveniently in the middle of a
deep mud puddle. Which complicates the recovery of luggage into the porter
carts. One detainee - a taxi driver caught driving on the Jews-only road from
the Checkpoint towards Alon More colony. According to the CP commander he is
suspected with carrying weapons. The "humanitarian" line is open and functioning
all the time. The pedestrians waiting behind the turnstiles are impeccable
single files. The air is filled mostly with a shrill trio of shrieking MP women
- at the Palestinians, at one another, and just to let off
steam.
15:30.
A soldier catches a young man trying to 'leak' out through the entry turnstiles
instead of the usual checking procedures. Full chase, weapons drawn, catch. Our
men beam. Got him.
A
resident of Beit Dajan tells us that yesterday at the Beit Furiq Checkpoint,
when he wanted to enter Nablus with a vehicle he bought for its parts, the
police confiscated the car and took its papers, to the Ariel police station. He
was not handed any paper witnessing the procedure. We call the army hotline that
promises to look into it.
The
body checks are strict as usual: a girl soldier pats down the t-shirted back of
a man turning around to show his middle. A young man wearing sweat pants is
required to tolerate a thorough touch-check of his crotch with a manual
magnetometer.
16:20.
Another 'sneaker' has been caught. We are told at the army hotline that before
the three punitive hours were up, nothing was to be done for those
detainees.
16:30,

Beit Furiq. At the checkpoint, vehicles are checked by a dog. Pedestrians
trickle through.

17:20,
back to Huwwara. The detainees are still inside. Just before we left for
Beit Furiq, an Arab Israeli couple was detained for having entered Nablus. They
too are still there. The man leans on a crutch and paces restlessly, wrapped in
a blanket (it is very cold). "Stop, you've harassed us enough!" he tells the CP
commander. The officer obviously enjoys playing with their IDs in his pocket.
The man loses his patience and becomes hysterical - cries, loses his breath and
collapses on the ground. Later we found out he fell as a result of a sudden
severe rise in blood pressure and heart beat. A Palestinian medic waiting in one
of the lines rushed to help him. Soon an army ambulance arrived complete with
doctor and three medics, armed with rifles and stretchers who stormed the shack.
Then an army intensive care mobile unit arrived as well. Later we learn that he
underwent back surgery half a year ago. Suffering frequent bouts of severe pain,
he took an acquaintance's advice to consult some treatment in Nablus, and that
was why they entered the city. He said he was son of a (army) bereaved family,
and described the entire detention as pure harassment. He yelled at the
commander, "I am a stinking Israeli!" A family relative picked them up at the
checkpoint.
The
Checkpoint emptied, and we left at 18:20.

Tuesday, 11.12.07, AM

Jit
junction.
Unmanned.

07:15--09:00,
Beit Iba. Few pedestrians and vehicles. Later, especially after 08:00,
when students started arriving, there was a livelier traffic from time to time.
Still, there was no congestion and most of the time the people entering Nablus
were not checked. The people coming out were checked at 2 parallel counters. For
the vehicular traffic there are 2 lanes as well, but cars were checked one at a
time.
A
man said that the mornings may be quiet, but in the afternoon there are "bad
soldiers".

Tulkarm
Area
Sunday, 9.12.07, PM

13:30,
Qalqilya. Few cars. All Israeli vehicles are stopped and checked. Most of
them are sent back, but passengers are allowed to enter by
foot.

14:30,
Route 55:
Azun.
Opened, the cement blocks removed. We later hear that it has been closed
again.
Jit junction. There are three soldiers and a
hummer.
Just
before Shavei Shomron,
another CP is set up with a jeep and two soldiers. Perhaps this is the army's
preparation concerning the settlers that are supposed to be coming into the
territories this week to set up new points.

16:35,
Anabta. Long queues both directions. There was no end to the amount of
vehicles coming from Tulkarm. The soldiers here are reservists and had no
answer to why there is this pile up of traffic. There was very little checking
of IDs or vehicles, most (Palestinians and Israelis) were waved
through.

17:20,
Jubara, Ar-Ras. Here again there are reservists. There are few vehicles
and they are passing rather quickly. The soldiers seem to be efficient and
pleasant.

Tuesday, 11.12.07, AM
Empty
roads and sparse traffic everywhere

06:40--07:00,
Qalqilya. The encirclement of the city is off; Israeli & Palestinian
vehicles go in and out of the city after being checked. A group of young
children who go to school in Israel come out running to their transportation
vehicles. An attempt to find out how come Palestinian children study in Israeli
villages was not successful; perhaps one of the parents is an Israeli citizen;
such mixed marriages abound in Qalqilya and many people who live here carry
Israeli IDs.

Azun.
There are no soldiers at the entrance to the village, the curfew is off, but the
concrete blocks are still there.

09:15--09:45,
Anabta. Tulkarm checkpoints are manned by reserve soldiers, who are more
judicious as a rule than the regulars. On the entrance side no lines at all, on
the exit side a fairly short line of waiting cars, moving
fast.

09:50--10:30,
Jubara & Ar-Ras. Down at Ar-Ras the traffic is sparse, the soldiers
friendly, but there is a dog-handler whose dog checks a taxi thoroughly,
apparently to train the dog, not due to specific
suspicions.

Hebron
Area

Tuesday
pm, 11.12.07

17:00.
Sansana-Meitar CP, Unusually for this hour, a long line of workers was
waiting to pass and go home. The workers quite angry. Only one checking stations
was open. We investigated, and were told
that the changeover had just happened, and there were some inevitable 1st day
glitches, but as we were speaking, a broken station was fixed and the line
started moving quickly.

Tarqumiya
Thursday
AM, 13.12.07

05:45. Things already looked bad
from the road. Many transports blocking the road, and waiting for workers to
cross. We estimate 500+ workers in the queue, which began some distance before
the covered track. Some said they had
been waiting over 2 hours. A soldier said the crowding was the result of the
closure of two other CPs.papers were being checked quickly and efficiently by 6
MPs. On average, 23 workers passed per minute.
At 06:15, 3 soldiers who were checking papers inside the station stepped
outside. The rate increased to 44
workers per minute. The workers claim
that when MW is not there, the line is held up for hours, and "after 7:00 the
contractors don't want us anymore." By
06:40, the line consisted of no more than 200 workers.