Hawwara, Sunday 31.7.05, PMObservers: Noa P., Yehudit B., Eli (guest from the US), Nomi L. (reporting)Partial, then total “life halt” at Hawwara CP: hundreds of people wait for hours until the regional brigade commander arrives to release them of this nightmare. The amazing thing is that the CP functioned without violence on either the soldiers’ or the Palestinians’ side. Each party knew “its place”. We would surely have gone mad in their stead!13:30- We set out earlier than usual in order to get to Beit Iba as well, proving that plans are only provisional. (On our way both Elat and Dafna called us, alerting us to emergency conditions at Huwara). We passed Tapuach-Zaatra Junction where we counted about 20 vehicles and business as usual.14:00 – From afar, the taxi drivers urged us to hurry to the CP. Some warning about “a terrorist”, or a “bomb belt” or “something else” was in the air, no one really knew, and hardly anyone was crossing. The pedestrian shed was full to bursting, people crowded like sardines in a can, women, children, babies, elderly people, everyone, pleading us for water. The bottles we brought with us were emptied within 2 minutes. Additional water we bought in Huwara were far from enough. At the CP between 800 and 1000 people were standing, some of them waiting over 3 hours.14:10 – the CP is closed, no one either coming or going. Everyone on their way into Nablus were halted on the road by the observation tower. The line of cars waiting to exit was endless. The line of vehicles waiting to enter reached all the way back to the end of the taxi park. Everyone stands waiting. We ask O/ of the DCO to at least supply women and children with water. “If I had any water I’d give them”, he says. We’ve never seen him so taut.We called the brigade commander directly, he asked us not to exaggerate. We say the situation is nearing catastrophe. How is anything to be found in this huge crowd?We called S. the man authorized by the regional general to speak with us on his behalf, and described the situation to him. We told him we’re filming everything, which we were. We also asked Hannah B. to help from her end at home. 6 detainees in the pen, one handcuffed for 3 hours already, hadn’t had water or food, the plastic cuffs very tight around his wrists. A student from Al Quds University.15:00- an ambulance with a head-wound case on his way to a hospital in Jordan waits over half an hour. His wife shows an envelope full of medical documents but who has the time to even look? The ambulance bypasses the line and will wait another 25 minutes at the head of the line until the soldiers release him as a special favor. The ambulance driver is very upset. “He’s going to die right here”, he mutters angrily.A slight man arrives from the taxi area carrying on his back a pale, extremely thin girl with a bandana covering her bald head. The sight is unmistakable. They are returning from Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital from chemotherapy treatment, the father carrying his daughter “piggy back” style, one hand holding a suitcase, the other – a pair of crutches. The soldiers don’t let them pass. we move them over to the shade but the girl cannot stand on her feet. The father says to us bitterly, I’ve just come from Israel, Israeli volunteer drove me here, and now they won’t let me enter Nablus?? For 25 minutes the girl-soldiers check them, and this only after we raised a racket. They allow them to proceed. On foot, of course.2 dialysis patients stuck in line for several hours were less fortunate.15:15 – an entire entourage arrives, of army officers, headed by the brigade commander. All wearing the inevitable helmets, bullet-proof vests, erect antennas galore. The spokesman, equipped with a video camera is busy filming too (hoping to catch the terrorist scoop?) MP girls who were out of work up till now are suddenly ordered to man the checking posts. The soldiers unplug the turnstiles. Something is suddenly more urgent than getting hold of a terrorist inside the furious crowd.15:20 – All the women and children are allowed through in one huge wave without checks.People entering Nablus are preventing from approaching the CP and are still waiting,over a hundred of them.The man come through the turnstiles. Hundreds still crowded in the waiting lines. Every once in a while the young men roar in protest and shake the turnstiles.A woman coming out of the line shows us her blood test mark from this morning at a Nablus hospital. She has waited at the CP for 4 hours, she tells us, angry and offended.15:30 – Only after we ask for it, a major hands us a canteen with a soft drink which we offer the detainees. The handcuffed young man’s mother arrives at the CP, incessantly crying and pleading to release her son. She is a diabetes patient and helplessly walks from soldier to officer to her handcuffed son to us and no one can help her.15:40 – gradually the detainees are released, except the handcuffed young man.Dozens of men are suddenly released from the turnstiles and crowd around the 5 active checking posts. Dozens of IDs are kept in a metal box, not clear to whom they belong.A jeep carries away the handcuffed boy, blindfolded, while his mother clings to the soldiers, weeping incessantly. The officers asks us roughly to tell her to go home. We gave her the number of the Center for the Protection of the Individual (Hamoked) where she could eventually inquire as to his whereabouts.None of the vehicles in either direction are allowed to proceed yet. An ambulance carrying a cardiac patient is only allowed through after we appeal to one of the officers.16:00 – vehicles begin to move out. Pedestrians bound for Nablus are allowed to proceed and arrive in a crowd of hundreds.,br>The crowd standing in the pedestrian shed is released, the shed keeps filling up withpeople coming out of Nablus. Now battalion commander E. supervises the proceedings directly. He instructs keeping the “humanitarian” line open so women and children can pass unchecked and without waiting.At the checking posts, the soldier standing guard, after barking at the young men in front of him “Get back! Get back!”, signals to them (with the finger that is not on the trigger) – finger on his lips – to just shut up!16:30 – the checkpoint finally drained of the multitudes, and we realize, like everyone else, that there was no terrorist, no belt, nothing. All for nothing. At some point Roni Shaked, seasoned Yedioth Aharonot reporter, appeared at the CP with a photographer,looking for action. We couldn’t figure out why and by whom he had been alerted to the CP (was it really “by chance” as he said?) The total “life-halt” didn’t particularly impress him, as he said himself, he’d been in this game since 1968 and is burnt out, and muttered something about our work here being a good thing, then lost interest and left the place. (Looking at over 800 people compressed behind steel turnstiles, parched and exhausted and totally overlooked as human beings – was no action, he admitted. No blast – no big deal. T.H.)As the storm died down, the battalion commander E. approached us, wanting to talk to us about the situation at the checkpoint, how we think things should be done differently. We said the soldiers should be first and foremost educated that they are dealing with human beings!All the rest – water, benches, constant “humanitarian line” for women, children and the elderly, shortening the distance pedestrians must cross by foot (just at that moment a young man, his leg in a cast, limped by on crutches, having to hop on one foot all the way to the taxi park), letting patients and the elderly reach the taxi park by car, all the rest, after today in Hawara, is “small change”…Implying that nothing, absolutely nothing, will make a difference, other than putting an end to these checkpoints and going home…Added note on our visit to Beit Iba – 17:00relatively light pedestrian and vehicle traffic, the usual arrogant but uneventful conduct of the soldiers. 2 things worth noting:a university student from the village of Qadum was already detained in the pen as we arrived. He had been told the GSS (security services) wanted to take him in for questioning, and he asked us to stick around because he was afraid to be beaten up on the spot. About half an hour later, a soldier came up to him with a cell phone, handed it to him, and the student had a lengthy conversation with the GSS officer. To our inquiry, he told us he had this long interview on the phone (about 10 minutes) – concerning his identity and lots of details about his family. We offered to note down a phone number of his family or neighbors so we could call them and give them the Hamoked number to inquire of his whereabouts. This he refused, claiming they had no phone.A family – a mother and 3 young children – arrived with heavy baggage at the CP,on their way into Nablus, having come directly from Jordan through the Allenby Bridge. Contrary to the instructions known to us – that Palestinians arriving at the CP directly after having gone through all the checking procedures at Allenby Bridge border crossing are not to be checked at the inner CP at all but rather allowed through automatically if it’s on the very same day) – the soldier insisted on checking them including testing the young children about their identity.Which reminds us – afterthought of the translator T.H. – that at Huwara CP, the young officer in charge had not an inkling of a notion as to the official difference between the various kinds of Israeli (blue) identity card holders – “normal” Israeli citizens vs. Palestinian residents of the East Jerusalem zone.