Huwwara, Friday, 10.3.06 AMObservers: Ophra T., Nili F. (reporting)Translation: Hanna K.08:45 -A hammer stands opposite the Marda village. Both at Marda and at Zeita there is a barrier – an iron arm – on the road leading to the villages. Today the passage is open.08:50Zaatara Junction (Tapuach)For cars coming from the west there is one post manned by three soldiers, two of which are busy in the concrete structure. A bus and three taxis are in the queue. For cars coming from the south (Nablus) there is a queue of ten cars, mainly trucks and taxis. The checking is performed quickly and the queue disappears in minutes.09:00 Huwwara South. A Border Police patrol vehicle stands opposite the southern CP. The taxi drivers at the parking lot talk to us and raise the following points:A Palestinian, a taxi driver: yesterday at about 11:00 he transported in his taxi a family with children and babies. The car queue that was waiting to be checked at the Zaatara Junction was very long. The toddlers in the car cried. He bypassed the queue in order to talk to the soldiers who refused to listen to him and said: “go back or I’ll shoot you”.A Palestinian from the mixture plant situated about fifty meters from the southern CP complains that the army has closed the access road to his home, which is located about hundred meters from the plant. He is unable to reach his home in a vehicle, only on foot. According to him the army has probably closed that access so that it would be impossible to pass on from there, but he suffers.A Palestinian from Awwarta tells us that his family has a plot of land with olives, which they have been working since about eighty hears. Because of the closed road between Nablus and Aqraba (already five years) there is a new law according to which the access to the whole area left of the road is forbidden to its owners. No farmer is allowed to enter, not to plought and not to harvest the olives. No permits are issued. This year the army authorities have promised to allow olive harvesting up to one kilometer from the Itamar settlement, but did not fulfill their promise. The settlers picked from the Palestinian areas this year and last year, he saw it with his own eyes. The sheep from Itamar come down to graze in the Palestinians’ areas. In addition there were fires there, more than once. As the whole village is not permitted to enter they could not extinguish the fires.Another Palestinian testifies that from the villages of Aqraba and Yanun too they are not allowed to enter their own olive groves. Last year, he reminds us, the army killed two children who entered there.09:30Huwwara North. An enormous signpost hangs on the fence leading to the northern CP: “Paamonya netto, presents for the poor” the settlers again present themselves as a merciful and compassionate people if Jews are concerned.The CP itself is almost empty. Those who arrive are checked by a Military Police girl soldier (the papers are checked against a page with numbers which lies on the computer). The girl soldier stands in the concrete structure, protected from all sides by Perspex boards so that she won’t have any physical contact with the local population. Between the turnstiles )to the right of the Palestinians in the queue) on the spot where there permanently are two soldiers who check the contents and if they feel like it order that coats be lifted and belts removed, there now is a beautiful concrete structure, closed in at the roof and the gate with Perspex boards. A fixed post, not a temporary one anymore. A new device which did not exist two weeks ago. Now the soldiers are protected from the weather and from contact with the population. By the way the construction is on the path intended for the humanitarian queue. Perhaps this is no more needed. At the entire CP area there are about ten soldiers and a girl dog-trainer. When a dark skinned young man arrived at the CP he is detained (not in the detainees shed but at the side). The soldier girl summons somebody who brings her a two way radio through which she wishes to check the young man. He is released almost immediately. Unexpectedly and by pure chance the soldier girl suddenly asks an elderly man who presents her his papers: “where are you going to? where from? ” in a commanding tone. Just like this, so that he should not feel free after the checking of the contents and before the checking of the papers. The man could be her father but this did not make her talk to him politely.09:40A young man who entered Nablus from the south is detained and his papers are being checked and he is enabled to enter Nablus.A man carrying a baby girl in his arms with his wife next to him is asked what the gender of the baby he is carrying is.09:50A bus full of men and children arrives at the CP from the direction of Nablus and is stopped for checking. All the passengers are made to leave that bus and their papers are collected for checking. They are standing in the cold and waiting. At the same time a group of about ten men passes between the turnstiles. In a conversation with one of the bus passengers it transpires that this is a football team from Nablus which travels, with its fans, to a game in Jericho. The game is fixed for 4:00 in the afternoon. A girl dog trainer goes and checks the empty bus. A girl soldiers rummages through the hand bags of the passengers, and returns the “kosher” papers, to each person by name. The last boy is detained for a bit (a is the bus and all its passengers) in order to check his papers a second time.10:05The bus is allowed to go on its way. The Palestinians who passed between the turnstiles join it.In spite of everything the bus does not continue on its way because it is clocked by a hammer and the soldiers inside it are in no hurry to leave the middle of the road. When one of us stands in front of the window of the hammer the driver is good enough to turn the vehicle round and let the bus pass.10:20We leave the CP.