ZA’TARA, SARRA, BEIT FURIK, Sunday 2 May 2004 AM Observers: Hanna L., Sna’it (reporting) colour=red>There were very long lines of pedestrians and vehicles everywhere and very scrupulous checks. Little consideration was shown for medical cases.07:30 — Za’taraA line of 43 vehicles, mostly taxis and a few buses and commercial vehicles, was waiting at the exit out of Nablus. A check was being conducted (this is new) on people entering Nablus – and there was a medium to long line of men and women and vehicles, particularly trucks and taxis. Only three relatively courteous soldiers were on duty , but every vehicle was emptied of passengers and documents were checked so that the pace was very slow. Passengers in one of the first taxis in line told us that they’d been waiting for nearly an hour. We called the army “humanitarian” hotline and the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that deals with civilian matters] (this time they didn’t tell us that they don’t talk to civilians!) to ask them to provide reinforcements for the morning hours.This is a chronic situation and perhaps we should broach the matter with the higher echelons.08:15 — SarraThe checkpoint was completely empty. Teachers went through, and a labourer coming from Nablus. They claimed that Nablus was encircled on one side but that people from Sarra were allowed to enter and exit from the other side.08:30 — AwartaThere was a line of 50 trucks trying to bring merchandise into Nablus. Many of them were only permitted to transfer their goods in the back-to-back system [whereby no truck actually crosses from one side to another of the checkpoint: incoming trucks off-load onto the backs of vehicles waiting to take the goods on the next stage of the journey in what is held to be a “security” measure ]. The position at the roadside, which hadn’t been manned until recently, had been fortified on all sides and was now manned. When we returned more than an hour later only three more trucks had gone through! The soldier explained that they were checking papers “so that people won’t stand in line if they have no prospect of going through.” And so that the road (i.e. the Israelis-only road) stays open to traffic. In other words, Palestinians trying to travel this road will be detained. The very young soldier asked what Machsomwatch meant and tried to explain why the “checkpoint work” he and his comrades do was so important: “until the time comes when Palestinians are capable of building a state for themselves and taking responsibility for their actions…”08:.45 — Beit FurikThere were long lines of people and trucks at both ends — i.e. going towards Nablus and coming away from the town. The six detainees were all taxi drivers whose car keys had been confiscated, in some cases because they’d crossed an imaginary line at the checkpoint when they were bringing passengers through the dirt road earmarked for Palestinians, and in other cases because they had tried to evade the checkpoint by driving round and had been caught. These latter had also been forced to deflate their tires. The explanation I received from the deputy company commander who was there was that this requirement compels the drivers to summon a special breakdown service and to wait for hours until some mysterious paper concerning their misdemeanours arrives from an army unit elsewhere. After lengthy negotiations it was agreed, on the authority of the deputy company commander, not to detain them for the entire “permitted” four hours; instead they were told to return to pick up their vehicles on Thursday. On this matter, and others, and because of the policy there (see below) we called the DCO which later sent an officer to deal with all these cases.A number of trucks were forced to unload all their merchandise before being allowed to go through from Nablus to Beit Furik.We began dealing with two medical cases, people who had been brought by the detained taxi drivers, and who were obviously sick. One of them was about 50-years-old and the other 32. They were detained at length ostensibly for checking of their papers. The first one was allowed through after we nagged; the second was not allowed through despite the doctor’s letter. We put him into direct contact with M. of the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) organization. A group of six Palestinians arrived just before we left: they had been caught a day, or days, before travelling in a car with Israeli markings on the “Israelis only” road near Huwwara, their ID cards had been taken and they had been told to come today to the security officer at Beit Furik. There they were informed that they’d get the IDs back in a week’s time. We stayed in contact with them after leaving for Huwwara and it transpired that the DCO officer to whom we’d spoken earlier had promised to release them shortly. But at 11:30 this hadn’t yet happened.The Beit Furik checkpoint was manned by quite a number of men and women soldiers, and there were three officers there while we were there. But nonetheless organization was poor, only one direction at a time being checked and the lines grew constantly. There was one soldier there known to us from previous occasions who tried hard to help the Palestinians, but he was alone in his attitude. The commander, also familiar to us, was arrogant and flatly refused to talk to us. Whenever we encounter him we have to summon a DCO representative to deal with the problems. He and his deputy (who did agree to talk to us) see us as a serious nuisance and ignore us in the hope that we’ll disappear.The teacher’s licence of a 29-year-old man had been taken and torn up before we arrived on the pretext that it was forged.10:00 — Huwwara southThere were a few soldiers at the checkpoint. The long, dense lines, shuffled forward at a medium pace. More than 30 Palestinians had been detained, many of them students and teachers with valid papers, who had been waiting between two and three hours, with no shade. The vehicle line was relatively short. Ambulances went through fast, as did the women. We tried to deal with the problems of the detainees and called everyone possible to speed up the check. The checkpoint commander would not accept medical referrals dated the same day and claimed that such referrals do not take precedence over the order to ban men aged 16-35 from passing through. We made a number of calls to the “humanitarian” hotline and to PHR on their behalf. Here too there was one helpful soldier who helped us get several such cases through, including fathers carrying infants with hospital referrals.10:40 — Huwwara northMore than 100 Palestinians stood in a line which was almost immobile, despite the large number of soldiers who always man this checkpoint. This time the women’s line was moving satisfactorily. A medium-sized line of vehicles was being examined but only sporadically . There were no confiscated taxis. The van confiscated weeks ago whose owner was run over, was still there. When we arrived there were no detainees in the detention area (there is a net stretched over it now for shade) but we discovered that the commander and one of the soldiers were returning documents to a large group of young men standing alongside the usual shelter. We dealt with two medical cases. One was a father travelling there and back to Jordan to visit his 6-year-old son who has cancer. The child started treatment in Israel but for financial reasons is now being treated in Jordan. (The father has another four children).11:00 — Huwwara southA large proportion of the veteran detainees had been released, but not all. Meanwhile several new ones had been added. We continued to deal with medical cases and with two young men who had been handcuffed, one of them blindfolded, in the concrete pill-box at the side while we were not there. The explanation was: “He raised his hand against a soldier!” : and that was that. We didn’t succeed in talking to the two because they only spoke Arabic. Hanna did manage to persuade the soldiers to untie them and transfer them to the detainee’s area. There was no water at either end of the Huwwara checkpoint and shade only at the northern side for the detainees. The commander of the southern checkpoint explained: “They [i.e. the Palestinians] keep on breaking the water container, so now they’ll get no water!”At Beit Furik there was both shade and a working water container , yet, for all that, no water was available to the Palestinians despite our comments.The DCO and the “humanitarian” hotline both tried to help and succeeded a little.