Huwwara, Sunday 25.3.07 PM Observers: Noa P., Judit B.,Galit G. and Naomi L. (Reporting) Translation: Tal H.15:00 Tapuach Junction Checkpoint: over 40 cars waiting to be checked, coming from the north. Reservists man the checkpoint. They instruct all passengers to disembark, open every compartment, every tool kit, plastic bag. On a draughtsman’s ruler that a young man holds in his hand, the reserves soldier asks: “Say, what is this?” People report waiting over half an hour. At the Huwara checkpoint (5 minutes down the road) they waited for an hour before they got here.At Huwwara village, people are fuming. Men we talked to have told us of Border Patrolmen beating up people as a part of their daily routine. The villagers are amazed at the repeated reports of the recent beatings case that was captured on camera in Huwara and aired on Israeli television, but they don’t believe this will bring about change. Since that case, the BP has resorted to patrolling the village in army jeeps rather than the usual police jeeps.15:45 – Huwwara CheckpointGreat crowding behind the turnstiles. Many students, their day over, are on their way home. The soldiers are busy drilling the people waiting in lines – move 2 meters back, one by one, everybody back etc etc. 3 checking posts are manned and the checks are conducted rather swiftly but to the constant yelling of the MPwomen.16:15 – at the vehicle checking lane, the sniffer-dog trainer lady orders passengers out of the cars and out to stand with back to the vehicle being checked. All bags and packages are removed from the car and spread on the ground, including food. The soldier lifts one bag after another, opens them, the dog sticks its nose in and sniffs, drooling after having emptied its own water bowl standing very near. Some of the bags are ripped as the dog steps over them in action. Women’s handbags, too, and their personal and discreet objects receive the same treatment. We watch, guts clenched. Not just us. Except for the passengers who were ordered to turn their back on the scene so as not to witness the ‘military secret procedure’, anyone standing at the checkpoint is welcome to the sight. After we approached the DCO representative, he complained to the cp commander about the food being checked by a dog, and the commander said he’d ask the trainer not to do that.The special side line for women children and the elderly is closed – an educative measure for the women standing in line. Even after 3 soldiers point their guns at them and they stand in a ruler-straight line, the gate stays closed. Another 5 minutes, the soldier opens the gate and has to deal with a stream of pedestrians hurrying out.16:40 – the side line closes and opens after 10 minutes by the DCO rep. Now only men are let through, and after several minutes it is again opened and closed intermittently. After an alert about a ‘young woman’, all young women are moved over to one of the turnstile lines. Some of them refuse to cross through the turnstiles and as a protest measure, remaining standing in the front of the side line and do not move. This makes it difficult for the elderly men to reach the gate. The two other lines are highly crowded, and as one of the securing soldiers is away, it is not moving.All women under 30 are subjected to a body search around their abdomen and back by a MPwoman. The contents of their bags and purses are strewn on the table. The soldier reaches her two hands towards their belly, touches them, turns them around and touches their backs. Girls respond in various degrees of embarrassment and revulsion, humiliation and fury openly seen on their faces upon leaving. Some are on the verge of tears.Several women are taken to the hold for a more thorough search. When they have all gone through and the line empties, the soldier girl exclaims loudly: “I touched so many Palestinian women today!” and she too seems to sense something between embarrassment and disgust.Men in the waiting lines report standing for two hours.In the meantime we are again witness to the Israeli army’s fulfilling its missions as officially defined: “The mission of the Northern West Bank brigade (Shomron) is to defend the settlements and roads in its region… Enhance the settlers’ sense of security and maintain law and order so that their daily life may proceed unhindered.” This region includes Alon More, Itamar, Beracha, Yitzhar and “the Gideons” on the ‘Brazil’ and ‘Madison’ roads:8 patrolling soldiers lead 3 men to the checkpoint. One of the men is tightly handcuffed behind his back. With them are 3 children, all coming from the direction of the Har Beracha settlement. The soldiers caught them herding their sheep ‘too close to the Beracha settlement” at 14:00, and only now they received the batallion’s orders to bring them to the CP. The detainees are asking for a drink of water and one of them needs to go to the toilt. The captain in charge answers “Don’t shout at the Checkpoint!”When we repeat their request and it is clear that no soldier intends to oblige, Noa brings them Nadim’s water. After inquiring about the severity of their deeds, the captain asks his soldiers: “Does any one of you have any interest in them?” He then questions the Palestinians (who hardly speak Hebrew): “Do you possess any observation tools? How did you herd your sheep? How old are you? 27, 30? an the children? 11, 13, 14.”Then he instructs the soldiers to release the handcuffs and tells them to “find out what the brigade HQ wants to do with them”. The soldiers crowd around their commander and we, standing close by, have the privilege of being suicily spat at quite close to our feet by a first sergeant. One of the soldiers tells us not to photograph, and the captain says: “It’s a public space, anyone can take pictures here.” He will then say, “You know that I can change this around in a second…” We agreed that this too is conditioned in time and space and is no lasting solution. Throughout our shift, the captain prevents his soldiers from confrontations with us.About a half hour later, the captain calls HQ for the 3rd time asking what to do with the shepherds, and is told that no one knows what he’s talking about. Amazed and angry at the waste of time, dismissive attitude and mode of operation of Brigade HQ, he gives the shepherds back their IDs and lets them go.After we appealed to the captain with the case of a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a dentist who occasionally works in Nablus, and whom we know from previous shifts, and after the captain mentioned that ‘he committed a felony’, he speaks with him and instructs the soldiers to let him go.The next morning, Zacharia reports finding the knifed body of a shepherd next to the settlement Itamar and we think about yesterday’s shepherds – who endangers whom around here, and what the Palestinians have to go through day in day out, in order to enable the settlers to live a normal life.In fact, the shepherds’ crime was that their stick was actually a part of an army jeep antenna, and that in itself entails detention, cuffing and preventing use of toilets. Like the young man who was detained for wearing trousers similar to soldiers’ fatigues. How lucky that the tough captain was also human and behaved accordingly.