BEIT FURIK,HUWWARA, Monday 19 July 2004 PMObservers: Meki S., Anat S., Maya K. (reporting)A tough shift, but without any exceptional events.14:00 — Beit Furik On our way to the checkpoint, we were informed that a group from B’tselem (The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) was already there. We met them near the car park , after they’d been refused permission to stand by the checkpoint itself. They asked us to investigate rumors that detainees had been beaten up, and that they still bore the signs on their faces.There were 40 to 50 Palestinians on the western side (at the exit from Nablus) and two on the eastern side, one of them claiming he’d been waiting for half an hour. Since the soldiers called people alternately from each of the two sides, those coming from Nablus went through the checkpoint quickly, while those entering the city crossed only about half an hour after our arrival.The detainees: There were 10 of them waiting in the sun, and two more inside the concrete cabin. We couldn’t get any nearer, but we couldn’t see any obvious signs of them having been beaten up (no blood, no swollen faces). We got a soldier to take them cold water from us and we reported on the situation to the B’tselem group. According to the soldiers, all the detainees had been “caught” up in the hills around trying to by-pass the checkpoint; the ones in the cabin, said the soldiers, were the drivers who’d transported them. They’d all stay here until the evening, we were told . While we were there another three detainees joined the group.The soldiers weren’t well-disposed towards us , but we managed to get along with them. One woman soldier was pleased we were there and kept telling us so. As usually happens here, the soldiers told us there was a security alert about terrorists on their way here from Balata, and they asked us to move away. We did, but gradually we moved back closer. Suddenly we heard shooting. The soldiers ran off in pursuit of more people trying to evade the checkpoint. We watched until they disappeared from sight. 15:00 — HuwwaraThere was construction work underway at the northern side of the checkpoint. Slabs of concrete swayed in the air above our heads, dangling from a crane on a truck. Nearby a machine raised clouds of dust as it levelled the ground. There were 25 detainees, but it was difficult to know how long they’d been waiting (one told me he’d been there two hours. Later, when I spoke to him again through an interpreter, the interpreter told him: “Tell them you’ve been here since 07:00!” and that was just what he did. The checkpoint commander claimed that they had not been able to carry out the checks of the ID card details because of the noise from the construction machinery! On the southern side of the checkpoint, we were told that “communication problems” had prevented the checking of the detainees’ IDs [the checkpoint soldiers phone through the ID card details to the General Security Services (GSS — also known, from the Hebrew acronym, as the Shabak, or the Shin Bet), which cross-checks against its central list of security suspects and then contacts the checkpoints with the answers. Sometimes, the soldiers wait until they have accumulated several ID cards before they contact the GSS: this further prolongs an in any case often lengthy process. During this time, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoints since the soldiers hold their ID cards until clearance is received].Many of the detainees were on their way to the university and had produced pink university registration documents; but these do not have the same validity as proper student cards. They said they wanted to get to the university to collect their cards. But, according to the checkpoint commander at Huwwara South, the students get their cards after they’ve registered either through the mail or via relatives who pick them up for them , either way, he insisted, “They know how to get them!” All the detainees here were released at 16:00 , and there were three new detainees when we left. People generally speaking went through the checkpoint at reasonable speed. At 15:30, there were 13 detainees on the southern side of the checkpoint; some said they’d been there since 07:00, but according to the commander they’d only been there an hour or two. Their ID details hadn’t yet been sent for checking because of “communication problems”. We nagged a bit, and nagged again realizing that the detainees on the northern side had already released. But there were none released on the southern side before we left. Suddenly, aand for no apparent reason, a soldier shouted at the detainees: “Why are you looking at us? Turn around, all of you!”People with all the necessary permits went through quite quickly here, too. . Some young men, and others without permits, were refused permission to go through and it proved quite impossible to persuade the soldiers to change their minds.A minibus crowded with passengers from Saudi Arabia arrived. Their elegant suitcases were thoroughly checked, at first on a table, and then on the dirty ground (the carter transporting them was in a hurry), and from time to time their contents overflowed onto the ground.