Huwwara 31 May 2005 Watchers: Nurit V., Yael P., Lirit L. L. (reporting)We arrived at 8:10 a.m. A., the roadblock officer called us aside immediately to clarify some things. He asked us not to approach any of the soldiers apart from himself and not to cross to the side of the turnstiles. We agreed.8:15 a.m. A car is held up for a long time. We were unable to find out exactly why, it appears to be on the ‘death number’. There is no answer from the Shabak. The passengers in the car are frustrated; they look around, ask, and plead. An hour later I inform A., so that he does not feel that we are acting behind his back, that this is not a legitimate time scale and that I intend to make some telephone calls. He knows that an hour exactly has passed and he releases them – 9:20 a.m., they enter Nablus waving goodbye.10:00 a.m. A woman approaches us and says that her son is hospitalised in Jerusalem and only her husband has received a permit to visit him, she wants to go too, naturally. She can stay and sleep over with him and her husband cannot. We try to find out what is going on from the DCO and we are told that that’s the way it always is, and nothing can be done. She needs to apply to the Palestinian Authority and they pass it on to the IDF who decide who can and who cannot go. “It would appear that there is a problem with her”. We return to her and the whole family is disappointed. The husband says that although neither they nor anyone they know has problems with the law or with the army, his wife is not permitted, on a permanent basis, any out of the ordinary movement.10:30 a.m. A man, whose bag contains unidentified material, is detained. A kind of sooty plastic emerges from the stitching of the bag. He does not know what it is. It looks like the filling of the stitching which forms a kind of frame for the bag, but it is not possible to tell. After he had removed the contents of his bag one by one and was interrogated by the roadblock officer and the DCO officer he was released to go on his way.11:00 a.m.A man, a singer, approaches Nadim (our beloved driver), and says that he is not allowed to enter Israel although he receives many invitations to sing at events and so is not able to make a living. He applied a year ago and was refused. We agreed that he would try again and that he would tell us if he was refused again. I gave him my telephone number.Throughout the shift merchants approach, plead for their lives and tell us of their families and ask how they are supposed to live now that their stalls have been closed. “I have got 6 daughters and a wife, how will we eat now, I have got apricots, we will clean the area up”. The army has posted two police patrol cars on both sides of the plot so that, God forbid. no merchant should come back and sell maliciously.On the way back – 6 cars at Tapuach Junction in the direction of Tel Aviv and one at the roadblock in the direction of Huwwara.