Hamra and Tayasir, Tuesday, 17 October, 2006, AfternoonObservers: Daphne B., Tamar F., Hannah B. (reporting)Guest: Boaz (photographer)General: The Bak’aa CPS do not have many people and cars going through them, and there is no justification for detaining those who do go through for more than a few minutes. Still, we keep hearing that the passage takes a long time, sometimes hours, especially because of the soldiers’ conduct.As soon as we arrived at the CPs, they tried to get us to stand at a distance, and when we refused, the soldiers took their anger out on the Palestinians. They closed the CP “until we would move away from the place.” The army declared that very large areas in the region are areas for firing practice, and this harms the livelihood of those who have been living here for many years (according to the information that we have, they have been living here for more than 25 years).Hamra 13.00Laborers are returning from agricultural work. A Palestinian police car with three people is detained. They are not policemen but the car belongs to the police force. A problem ….. After about 45 minutes, Israeli policemen came on the scene and, thanks to our intercession, the passengers and the car were freed to go on their way. The soldiers are showing ‘soft’ hostility. One of them began a conversation, even agreed to listen … until we explained to him that we are in an area that does not belong to us. Then his approach turned into “The Land of Israel for the People of Israel.” He just did not know where the green line is and what it means.14:10 We left when the CP emptied outTayasir We must note how beautiful and how splendid this place is. Here, too, they immediately tried to get us to go “beyond the dark mountains” but we refused. In response, the soldiers asked for somebody from the DCO and for an officer, and there was an argument “of the deaf”. In the end, we moved back because the punishment – closing the CP – was meted out to the Palestinians. Boaz , the photographer, got into a conversation with the soldiers who explained to him that they are at the CP for us, that the women of ‘watch’ only look at the Palestinians, and are busy finding fault with the soldiers; they would do better to bring the soldiers sweets and drinks (“I, of course don’t need it … but to make the guys feel good.”).Since the traffic is quite thin at this CP – the soldiers focused on attempts to get rid of us. After we went away a bit, the CP began to operate at a reasonable tempo. At 16:00 we decided, despite the Ramadan, to hide behind the car to drink coffee. The soldiers thought that we had finally gone away altogether and they slowed everything down again. But the women of Machsomwatch belong to the group of ‘jacks-in-the-box” – we came back to the CP and waited until the last of the cars went through quickly.When we left, we met a truck driver whose story is one of the “thousand and one night” stories of the occupation. The man lives in Ein el Far’aa and at the end of a day’s work he wanted to go home. At Tayasir, he was refused. And what a surprise – he was also refused at Hamra. And what now? These are the only two possibilities for him if he wants to return home! We had to intervene assertively so that after a few hours, he succeeded in going through at Hamra and returning home – hungry and angry. That’s how we created another enemy for ourselves.[DK]