Huwwara 13 January 2006 Watchers and Reporters: Ofra T., Nili F.8:40 a.m.A Hammer jeep is parked at the roadside near Zeita.Za’atra Junction8:45 a.m.There are about four cars on the eastern side. On the northern side (Nablus) there is one car.Huwwara South8:50 a.m.A Border Police jeep is parked opposite the southern roadblock.There are many taxis in the car park and few passengers.There are growing piles of dirt and rubbish which give off a fetid smell (particularly because of the damp). The place looks extremely neglected – it reflects the despair of the Palestinians and the indifference of the army. This time it appears to be a health hazard.Huwwara North8:55 a.m.The Palestinian traffic is light. The separation has been in force for a month.Several of the soldiers had on small flags which appear to be printed with the words “with love from the ‘blue and white women’, Haifa”. The soldiers refused to talk to us but the roadblock commander, Anton, came up and told them to remove the flags from their uniforms.Suddenly two women from the ‘blue and white’ organisation appeared on our left (afterwards we saw that their car, registration no. 1218719 which bore the emblem of IBM, was parked in the roadblock where we are not permitted to park). One of them, whom we had already come up against, and who had been violent towards us in the past, answers to the name of Yael (tall, lipsticked, blue makeup accentuating her eyes which had a mad look and wearing a broad brimmed summer hat). The second one short, bespectacled, wearing a knitted hat and, as she later testified about herself, is from Haifa, a reborn Jew who had been a left-winger until her eyes had been opened to the truth. Yael attacked Ofra, swung her arm and gave her face a powerful slap.Ofra:She pushed and shoved me violently out of the northern roadblock area. At the same time she pulled my MachsomWatch tag off, threw it down and trampled it. She snatched my notebook and my list of telephone numbers out of my hands, tore them up and threw them down. She accompanied her violence with a stream of curses, “You disgusting, stinking woman, stop beating and pushing me… you are so disgusting that I cannot even touch you”.She pushed me up to the junction where settlers and Border Policemen quietly observed the incident. I approached the Border Police (who of late sit there permanently in their jeep), and asked them to help me and protect me from her. They answered: “We are not allowed to deal with civilians, call the police”. When I asked for the telephone number they answered: “We don’t have it, dial 100”. The number 100 was engaged for quite a long time.Every time I attempted to return to the northern roadblock Yael waylaid me and immediately strode forcefully towards me, caught hold of me and continued to act violently: she pulled my hair and scratched my neck until it bled.While she was pushing me a Hammer jeep with soldiers passed by. I asked the soldier who opened the jeep window to help me, he answered with a sweet smile: “We don’t deal with civilians”.When I asked them how, as human beings, how they could allow someone to be beaten up in front of them they replied “we didn’t see anything”.Nili:Meanwhile at the northern roadblock, the second blue and white ‘lady’ attacked me with pushes and shoves. When Ofra was violently distanced from the roadblock by Yael, the second one tried vociferously to frighten, preach to and accuse me, etc. With messianic zeal she tried to get me into an ideological discussion, I refused and said that the only thing I am prepared to talk to her about is their violence and their unlawful actions. Her justification and main maxim was that we were interfering with the work of the soldiers, distracting and endangering them. In this way terrorists can come and blow them up. This immediately led to the Holocaust and our unsuitability to be Jews and Israelis. She is fighting for her right of existence. She had complaints about our attitude towards the soldiers: “Do you bring them cakes? Why don’t you pamper them? We bring them cakes”. According to her she has no alternative but to look after the soldiers because “the army can’t overcome you”, also the media which writes about us (MachsomWatch), might frighten the army but not them. When the army talks to us, according to her, “they are just covering their backs because of the media”.When Yael came back to the roadblock she started to push me too and tried to snatch my report from my hands. She repeated what Ofra reported: “Oy, you are beating me…”. The second woman appeared to have some influence over her in connection with me as she stopped pushing me and stood aside. Every so often she was sent over to their car to bring her evidence of our “idiotic” actions so that the one talking to me could read them out to me. She was unable to decipher Yael’s handwriting thus I avoided having to listen to it. She was sent to bring an official letter stating that we were not permitted to talk to the soldiers but were allowed to be present. I repeated our right to be present and she again repeated that to be present was permitted but not any interference with the soldiers. I wondered aloud whether their scandalous violence was not more of a distraction to the soldiers’ work – and if this was not interference in their view.Her heated talk and her attempt to show me the truth about us and about the situation continued.10:05 a.m.They leave the roadblock with the one talking to me wishing me Shabbat Shalom.A short while after they left the roadblock a police patrol car arrived to take evidence from us. The interrogating policeman, from the Shomron area station, was Sergeant Amal Hassan who took down the details of the incident from each of us individually. The event was noted as patrol no. 4 event and, so that we could find out details of the process of the investigation, he gave us a telephone number to call: Yossi Dahan 03 906 5555 or the investigation coordinator on tel.no. 03 906 5460. He gave the description of the women’s car over his wireless with a request to stop and check it.While we were giving our evidence the roadblock commander came over to the patrol car. Ofra turned to him and said “thank you for defending me”. Anton, I can’t forget that in a previous shift he had said that he would let me (in spite of it being forbidden) cross into Nablus but not permit me to return, answered: “I can’t intervene between civilians. If a Palestinian had hit you I would have intervened”. And he added, “I cannot leave the roadblock”.The following are the names of the Border Police from the jeep who saw the violence and made no move to stop it:Naor Hinga 7696161Gil Preizler 74406174Eliran Vaknin 7674562After we had given our evidence near the northern roadblock we went home.