Huwwara, Sunday 14.5.06 PM Observers: Noa P., Judit B., Osnat (new), Galit G. and Naomi L. (reporting)Za’atara Junction15:00 – a constantly growing traffic jam as a result of the soldiers’ very slow (intended) handling. An ambulance moving a post-stroke patient to another hospital in Ramallah has been stuck for 10 minutes waiting for the soldiers to summon it for a check. Another ambulance transporting a physician on duty is waiting next in line. When we move over to speak to them, the soldiers are alarmed: we mustn’t do that, we’ll be kidnapped and it’ll be the soldiers’ responsibility.The cars are required to stop 20 meters from the checking post, the driver collects all the passengers’ IDs and walks over to the soldiers, hands them the IDs and returns to the car. The soldiers check whatever they check, and signal him to come back and retrieve the IDs. Not only is this process long and tedious (actually the whole checking procedure is meant only to implement the area-cell separation, and not inspect the vehicle itself. Not knives, pipes and other such are searched for). The soldiers take breaks in between checks, no rush, and for the Palestinians time just stands still. No wonder the waiting line grows incessantly and waiting time is over an hour. When Regional Brigade Commander Yuval Bazak began his term of duty here, he declared that Za’atara Junction was his own personal responsibility and that after all the renovations are completed people will not be waiting there for over 10 mintues!On our journey back, at 19:30, we saw a line of about 40 cars. Under the watchtower we detected 4 Palestinian men sitting on the asphalt, there’s no mistaking this squat, despairing and humiliated. We stopped. The four are from the village of Yatma, left of the checkpoint, then right, a 10-minute walk. They came by taxi from Nablus after a day’s work, and after a long and exasperating wait, the taxi driver gave up and decided to drive back to Nablus. They got off their taxi and turned to the checking post with their IDs in order to continue on foot – an unforgivable crime at Zaatara Junction CP! The soldiers got mad, ‘You’ll sit here for 5 hours’, they said. “When the junction is empty of cars, you’ll get beaten up.’ Every time they got up to stretch their legs and tried to warm up a bit, they were threatened anew. Their Ids were in their possession the whole time, and had not even been taken from them for an identity check! We arrived after they had been detained for 3.5 hours. The army hotline promised to look into this. We tried to speak with the CP commander. “If they behave”, he said, speaking of men who are surely his father’s age, he’d let them go exactly at 8 p.m., and not a minute earlier. Exactly after the 4 hour detention army regulations allow, which is also their ‘right’. We waited with them until their release.On our drive home, the hotline got back to us, telling us that queries at the battalion headquarters produced no evidence of any such detention. The ID numbers were not sent in for a check, so this just did not happen. Doubtless, some paratrooper sophistication was missing here. Or not.Yitzhar-Huwara Junction:15:30 – here too, 40 cars stuck waiting, extremely slow checks and long waiting. A group of 13 men is detained, among them ill people barely standing up. A minivan that tried to drive around and relieve the waiting at the CP – minutes after the last waiting at the last CP – full of young children all flushed with the heat, is detained for an hour, until we arrived and started making phone calls. Everyone is detained for punishment and learning a lesson, until the commander will feel like letting them go. He doesn’t say when.We informed the army hotline of this, took some phone numbers of detainees and proceeded to CP Huwara.17:10 – the group of men and vehicles detained is still standing just as we had left them and hour and 40 minutes ago. As soon as we arrived the passengers got their IDs back but the drivers and vehicles are still detained in punishment. According to them, one of the soldiers refuses to release them, while the other soldier did relent. How long he intends to hold them there, that he will not disclose – not to us nor to the detainees! The passengers have lost patience, and having their IDs back, catch a ride with a passing bus. The detained minivan driver asks to park on the other side of the road, turns around, hits a passing vehicle and chaos ensues. Words are exchanged, the soldiers crowd in with their drawn weapons, pushing and pulling people into a tidy line instead of reconciling them and avoiding further flare-ups. Soon a large number of soldiers show up (where are they when the waiting illness crawl interminably?) Only after we left we understood that the soldiers supposed the hit vehicle belonged to Jews. The injured driver is taken by ambulance to the hospital, and the ambulance driver gets back his ID.Huwara CP. Commander: R. DCO representative, B.16:00 – 6 detainees caught at 6 a.m. at Sara and brought to Huwara CP at 14:00. The commander says they will be detained until their IDs will be okayed. They complain they have not had anything to eat or drink since morning, and to our request, the commander gives him a soft drink.16:21 – all detainees released, one sent back to the end of the line.A new detainee in the pen, the soldiers happy to declare him “wolf pack”. Another student is detained, invited for a talk with Captain Shuqri at the Kdumim Base (He has a summons handwritten in Hebrew) in another 3 days. Since last Tuesday he has been detained every day. Until not long ago he served a 3-week jail sentence at Megiddo Prison, and released.The women and elderly special side line is alternately opened and closed, for lack of manpower, explains the DCO officer.From our distant observation point we witness an argument between the CP commander and the soldiers, and a youngster, an Open University student, who has no ID and presents a Palestinian passport in order to prove he lives in Amuriya village, wanting to go home. “You cannot pass with a passport if you have no Israeli visa”, the commander tells him at first. Since he stood there and insisted, we asked to speak with him and he was allowed to pass over to ‘our’ area. According to him, last night at 7 p.m., an army patrol inside Nablus took his ID and drove off. Go to the CP and looks for your ID they said, before they tok off. The ID was not at the CP. He slept in the street, and next day came to the CP again to look for his ID. It was not there. He went to the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior to get a document proving he has not ID. A document filled with official stamps, that is not worth the paper it is written on…We called the DCO who hurried to inform us that the fellow is GSS-prevented. So what, we asked, he wasn’t looking for work in Israel, nor trying to get a visa, just wanting to go home to Amoriya. “This is some problem”, the DCO summed up and promised to look into it. We appealed to the army hotline and insisted on locating the ID that was taken from him last night in violation of regulations by the soldiers, and after an hour-and-a half, the lost ID was found. Another half-hour wait, an army jeep arrives, the driver asks us, “What’s up?” and hands the ID to the CP commander. The student was in the clouds – he both got his ID back and got to go home, even without a visa to Israel…At the same time, a young man at the CP is prevented from approaching the CP. He says yesterday he tried to leave Nablus through the hills near Itamar settlement, and was caught by soldiers. His ID was confiscated and now he has come to the CP to get it back. This time the ID is at the CP, and he will have to wait until the commander relents, around 18:10.18:00 – the tea vendor tells us about sleepless nights at the Askar Refugee Camp, army incursions – throwing teargas grenades, jeeps screeching in the streets, shooting in the air – fear of going out in the streets, children frightened and crying. He says this has been going on every night, sometimes very late, perhaps this is a partial explanation to the very sparse traffic at the CP today. Due to all the prohibitions, there are no private cars, no buses, few students. People are afraid to get out of their homes.18:25 – a driver caught driving on the Apartheid road is detained for a check, says he’s been waiting for 2 hours already, sent to the detainees pen “to drink some cold juice. There are girls here who will be happy to talk to you, pass the time of day, and don’t get on roads that are not yours!” Apparently he came from Awarta after unloading goods there. He was stopped at the junction by soldiers who ambushed him and said that as a punishment he will be detained for 2 hours. After 2 hours he came to ask for his ID at the CP. We got the hotline involved again, they promised to look into it. The man has a business permit to enter Israel (not with his car), but on the settlers’ road he is still considered an outlaw.19:00- hardly any pedestrians, few vehicles waiting to exit.