Tapuach, Huwwara, Beit Furiq. 18 June 2005 Watchers: Vivi T., Varda G.T., Chava H., Nurit L., Naomi R., and Chana B.We stopped at Lovneh Sharkia for a return visit to the family whose house was held for two years under the ‘Grass Widow’ procedure.Tapuach JunctionAs already reported this week the residents of the North Bank are prevented from going into Ramallah and further south. The queue of cars was long and a large group of pedestrians waited in the hope that they would be able to cross in the southerly direction. The south to north crossing was freely available. We started an extensive series of telephone calls to every possible location: Members of Knesset, various centres, the army – from the office of the Central Command’s Major General to the D.C.O. in Shomron – all to no avail. We were jousting with windmills. Only when we returned to Jerusalem did the H.Q. spokesperson return our call and explain that the orders had been given at the highest level and was the result of attempts by terrorist cells to move people via Ramallah to carry out attacks in Israel – the usual explanation! Our protest against the collective punishment did not help – and we will continue to deal with it during the week – we will try to recruit Members of Knesset in the hope that they can help. We also spoke to Amira Hess – who intends to write an article about the problem this week.HuwwaraHeavy traffic crossing in both directions. Obviously in the framework of ‘they know’ there was no announcement that there is no southerly crossing at Tapuach.Two youths were in the lock-up – one bound. We learned that a magazine containing bullets had been found on his body. The youth made every effort to provoke the soldiers and seemed to be ‘interested’ in being arrested. Beside him sat his friend who had been with him when he was caught. We tried to find out who he was and how he was caught but he refused to speak to us and also prevented his friend from communicating with us. The soldiers behaved decently towards him. We tried to find out what would happen to him and heard, as usual, that they were waiting for the Shabak. After about an hour two police bomb disposal experts arrived, talked to the youth and left empty handed. Meanwhile another man was detained – aged in the region of 27 – 30 in our estimation. We asked why – but we did not manage to find out what was happening when the man was taken for a body check and immediately after that he was bound and his eyes were covered with flannelette. We had still not managed to get any details of the man by the time we left, and the Shabak had still not appeared. We tried to speak to the D.C.O. representative who behaved in a very aggressive fashion and warned us that any attempt to find out what is happening to the young boy would be interfering in security matters and obstructing the army.A woman, whose daughter is mentally handicapped, is held after she tried to stab a soldier at Tapuach, she asked us to see that her daughter crosses to get medical help for her condition. We tried to give her the telephone numbers of the doctors, of Dalia Bassa and the centre – but it seems that she thinks we will be able to deal with the matter on the spot and it is doubtful if she will call the telephone numbers we gave her.We bought some fruit from the stallholders at the southern roadblock.Beit FurikThe main complaint of the taxi drivers is that the roadblock does not open on time – a complaint that has been repeated over and over again during the past few days. We will try to deal with the problem tomorrow – although we have already dealt with it this week.