Zaatara, Huwwara, Beit Furiq, Sarra 8/02/2004 Hanna L., Donna B., Snait G. (reporter), a guest Mostly- the destructive impossible CP “routine” with a few exceptions.The worst bottleneck at the present time in busy CPs – length of time needed for an answer/clearance from the GSS on IDs – especially those of younger people. Maybe MW should exert more pressure for getting computing devices at such PCs(in spite of the fact that this would seem as if we’re complying with the present system of CPs and roadblocks harassment. 7.45, Zaatara. Completely empty of people and vehicles. 8.10. We divide into two, one for the northern Cp – exit from Nablus, and one for the southern one – entrance to Nablus. Age limit here today 16-45. Southern Huwwara. All in all soldiers behaved with reasonable politeness and efficiency. Had three lines- women, men and people with DCO permits and special cases. The same applied to cars and ambulances Northern Huwwara. Beside the group of soldiers (including two women soldiers) Elad from the DCo was around – he stuck to regulations even more than the soldiers and talked in a barking-like fashion to the Palestinians. We raised two issues with him: A. ambulances were queuing up waiting for quite a while to go out and get cases back to hospital. B. It turned out that the soldiers were not very quick in transmitting the ID numbers to the GSS for checkup and did it with some teachers too!!!The first issue was soon addressed. With the other one we had to repeat , remind and nag. It also turned out that if people who handed in their IDs regret it due to the long waiting – THEY CANNOT HAVE THEIR ID BACK BEFORE CLEARANCE ONCE THE NUMBER WAS TRANSMITTED TO THE GSS.There was also an Israeli citizen (Israeli Palestinian) who was living in Aman, and went into Nablus to visit his sister. The DCO Elad insisted on calling the police. But as it turned out the man had already been waiting for over and hour and a half, and no police car was in view. After repeated reminding and nagging the man was admonished and sent away.There is a metal detector at the exit “gate” which is used both to check people’s person and their luggage.Once Ofer arrived things eased markedly – the vehicles were checked quickly, and hardly any IDs were transmitted to the GSS.Going back to Southern Huwwara around 9.00 it turned out that there were 7 people who were waiting for their IDs, BUT THEIR NUMBERS HAD NOT BEEN TRANSMITTED TO THE GSS.After some mild pressure this was done: we helped a few humanitarian cases, but as otherwise things were “normal” we went on. 9.30, Beit Furiq. Age limit – 35. A pretty long queue of men waiting to enter into Nablus and a smaller group, but with older people, waiting to go out to Beit Furiq.The officer (lieutenant) was pretty resentful towards our attempt to get info on the situation at large. The other soldiers were told to refer us to him only, and he was “deeply hurt” as we sought to get the Palestinian side of the picture. We pressed him to organize his soldiers in such a way that both exit and entrance would be manned simultaneously.Two cases were more conspicuous: A. A pair of deaf-dumb brothers who wanted to go and renew their special cards, but were under 35 (one was accompanied by his family – wife + children – who also had to go to hospital). In spite of the “Catch 22” situation, the officer refused to let them pass. There was no answer at the BF DCO so we called IDF Spokesperson’s office, asked him to take care of it. He called us about 40 minutes later (when we were back at Huwwara) and told us that the instruction was given, and they passed through.B. A group of 8 detainees who, according to the officer, were caught (around 6.45) while trying to go around the CP. By the time we got there he had already got clearance, but decided to keep them waiting there as a punitive measure. 3 of them were actually on their way to the DCO office with the right forms, receipts from the DCO etc. We reminded him of the 4 hours limit, and took one of the men’s phone number to check. Later on, while we were not there anymore, it became clear that he had no intention of releasing them after 4 hours. We called Raad, and it took a number of phone calls and a special DCO officer to go there in order to get the people out after almost 5 hours. 10.15, Both CPs of Huwwara. Northern side – Ok. Southern side – the detainees mentioned were finally cleared and Released. We had a small back and forth argument with the soldiers as a young Settler (Noar hagvaot) went with his dog into the CP fenced area and we demanded that he would be told to get out of there. Finally we prevailed. 11.00, Sarra. The lower iron vehicles-gate was locked and chained. Two of us climbed up the hill – the soldiers stayed in their uphill ‘fortress’ . The place was almost totally deserted. Those wishing to go to Nablus have to take off their coat and open their shirt and then climb up to the soldiers for ID checkup. We talked with one person from the village who said that soldiers did not go in for the last 10 days.A loaded lorry with sand was driving into the village – we wondered why, as hardly any palestinians builds new houses these days. 11.45, Zaatara. Just as we approached about 11 people were given back their IDs. We had no time to talk with them as they quickly got into transits. The soldiers said the clearing took around an hour and a half.A few vehicles were checked politely but slowly.A massive digging out with heavy tractors etc is going on next to Ariel.