HUWWARA, Saturday 7 August 2004 AM Observers: Hedva A., Hanna B., Hava H., Neta (a guest from the USAwhere she is a student ) and Nina M. (reporting) colour=red>Summary: The commander of Huwwara South, U., behaved outrageously and caused much suffering to passing Palestinians; but Huwwara North checkpoint had a sensible commander, Sh. The contrast between the two checkpoints provides yet another object lesson in the extent to which the conduct of the checkpoint depends on the individual soldiers on duty. It is important to point that the soldiers appeared to be very much constrained by being ordered to make sensible concessions towards the Palestinians, but unfortunately appeared far less inhibited by any orders that somehow gave them scope to take revenge, to humiliate or to be violent. Huwwara South: When we arrived, we found about 10 detainees , some of whom had already been there for two hours [they are held pending the cross-checking of their ID details by the General Security Services (GSS — aka the Shabak or the Shin Bet ) against a central list of security suspects. The check can take a long time, especially if the checkpoint soldiers are dilatory in sending the details to the GSS or, once the check is completed, if they are equally slow to release the detainees who are virtually held captive all this time since the soldiers hold their IDs until clearance arrives]. The commander, U., refused to communicate with us and forbade both the other soldiers and the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) representatives to speak to us [the DCO is the army section handles civilian matters; it usually has representatives at the checkpoints, ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. He introduced a hysterical and violent atmosphere without any objective reason, for there were no big crowds at the checkpoint. One soldier in particular cooperated to the full in all this. Thus, one man with a indisputably valid permit to enter Nablus wasn’t even given a chance to show his permit, but was simply turned back quite arbitrarily. The same happened with an 18-year-old man accompanied by his father as he went to register for studies at the Nablus An- Najah University. U. shouted brutally at an old man with Israeli ID who wished to enter Nablus, and U.’s close associate shouted at very sick old lady who was being helped by her young son (this particular episode ended in the soldier agreeing to put her into a passing ambulance; he then turned to us to ask “Is that good enough for you?” A UN worker whose documents had expired one month ago and who was on his way to renew them had the documents confiscated and was given a hefty push by U., just to underline the point. When the man tried to move away from U., he shouted at him “”Heh! Are you try to hit me!” Altogether, U. lost no opportunity in trying to pin accusations on to the Palestinians: There was, for example, the instance of the two men (a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship and a Palestinian with a Jordanian passport), both holding proper papers, who’d given a Palestinian family a lift from the Tapuach junction to Huwwara. The head of the family had a permit to move around the West Bank. U. tried to prevent the release of all three men by inventing accusations that the Israeli and the Jordanian had tried to evade the checkpoint and drive straight through, and, further, that they had been transporting persons who had been in Israel illegally.U. and his fellow soldier shouted and pushed people around so violently, creating so much tension that every now and then we feared shots must follow. We called Y. and M. from the Israel army spokesperson’s office, E. from the army’s “humanitarian” hotline and the DCO at Beit El. One of the local senior army personnel arrived and we told him that we couldn’t understand why such a sensitive place as Huwwara South checkpoint should be under the supervision of a man like U. How many reports must the press publish to effect a change? U. who, as we have reported, refused to speak to us, heard these complaints of ours and came over to ask : “What moral basis have you got for talking like that?” After the arrival of the senior office the atmosphere calmed down.It is perhaps worth adding that the behaviour of the DCO representatives was also very problematic. One, whom we met on our arrival, said he did not want to speak with us , because one of our Machsomwatch colleagues had called him a fascist. Another was very much influenced by U., although he did show some good will. When we asked a third DCO officer, G., to help with a student who had an exam at An-Najah university at 09:00, he replied: “So what! So he won’t get there on time! I hate Palestinians, I wish they’d all just disappear!” And that was the end of it: we couldn’t help. The student had arrived at the checkpoint at 06:00 and had been detained ever since. When we left at 11:00 he was still there — nobody would listen. Huwwara North: The running of this checkpoint was the absolute opposite! There was no sign of verbal or physical violence. The commander, Sh., was polite to everybody, and showed lots of common in managing the situation. That applied equally to his soldiers although they implemented the restrictive orders to the last letter.