Huwwara, Awwarta, Beit Furik Thursday 27.7.06 AMObserving and reporting: Naava M., Claire A.Driver and observer: TalTranslation: Hanna K.Summary: Everywhere there are soldiers pointing their weapons at the Palestinians. A severe punishment of a detainee at Huwwara.8:10 Tapuach Junction21 cars are waiting in the queue. At the parking lot there is a bus, all the passengers of which were made to descend for checking. One of the passengers says that they left the bus a few minutes ago. There are two soldiers performing the checking. A girl dog trainer simultaneously performs a check at the rear cabin of the Transit standing besides the bus. The dog sniffs.In about 10 minutes the bus is released to continue on its way. Another bus arrives, this time the passengers are not required to descend for searching, and thus also for the third bus.In the car queue, both for cars coming from Nablus and from the villages, the waiting period lasts about 30 minutes. A soldier in the booth aims his weapon at the Palestians during the entire period of our stay.8:40 -An ambulance arrives at the humanitarian queue. A soldier checks, tells the driver to leave the car and open the rear door, looks and asks. In the end he allows him to go.On the way to Huwwara: a blocking at the Burin-Yitzhar Junction is manned, but there is no queue.A little before 09:00 Huwwara JunctionAbout 20 cars parks on the side, and people go by foot to the CP. The CP commander says that nobody from Jenin passes, as regards the other towns there is an age limit. From Nablus the passage is slow, there is a long queue and the progress is very drawn out. The people report that the waiting period is an hour at least.A taxi driver who was not allowed to pass because he had no authorization came up to us. He tries to find out how he could, after all, enter his taxi into Nablus. He summoned another driver who has an authorization, but until that one will arrive two hours at least will pass.There are two detainees, one aged at least 50 years, speaks Hebrew, is confined in the solitary confinement cell (the booth that bears a sign “women’s checking cell”). His name is S. A., ID 9924413138, the second, a younger man, does not speak Hebrew, stands in the shed with handcuffed hands. His name is Hanni Naif, he does not remember his ID number. The older man talked to us and explained that they are here an hour already, and do not really understand why they are detained, all they want is to try and work and support their family. Soldiers we asked explained to us that they were ordered to park their vehicle at a certain point but they parked it somewhere else.- So this, in fact, is a punishment?- Yes! Only since 15 minutes ago.- And how long will they be like this?- We shall see…We phone the humanitarian center. Miriam from the center promises to deal with the matter. At 10:00 the younger detainee calls us and shows how his hands are swollen from the handcuffs. We repeatedly apply to the soldiers and the commander to remove the handcuffs, and repeatedly approach the center. Miriam says that they are detained for security reasons and that the General Security Service is due to arrive. She promises to speed the matter up. She advises us to approach Fuad, the DCO representative, who is at the CP, directly. When we try to approach him he turns his back on us. In the meantime they take the handcuffed man to a rear closed cell, which we are unable to approach. He is able to talk with the second detainee, and this one reports to us that now they have tied his legs too.After another telephone conversation with the center, which, like the former ones, had absolutely no results, we decide, to go to Awwarta and Beit Furik to find out what is happening there and to return to Huwwara later to ascertain if the detainees have been released.10:15 Awwarta. At the goods passage point the progress is very slow. About 20 vehicles coming from Nablus wait in the queue, 6 in the opposite direction. At last there is a sign and a truck approaches. The driver descends with the papers, the soldier checks whether these indeed are vegetables, and lets him pass. The same happens with another vehicle. All this time a soldier stands with his weapon aimed at the Palestinians.10:30 Beit Furik. A couple approaches us. They are from another village, have passed already two CPs, including the Huwwara CP, they want to get to a funeral at Beit Dajan, but they don’t enable them to pass here at the Beit Furik CP. The CP commander explains that this CP is intended only for people for the nearby villages, and that he is unable to let the couple pass. What does he suggest they do? To bypass the CP and to pass through the valley! The relatively elderly man says that had he been alone he might have tried to pass like this, but together with his wife this is impossible.10:50 Back to HuwwaraWe see that the detainees are still in the same situation as they were when we left them, two separate cells, and the young one we are unable to approach.We make another effort to approach him and to take photographs: he lies on the floor in a tiny, dark, dirty cell. Both his legs and hands are tied. He didn’t get any water, although we demanded this a few times. A soldier jumps forward and says that it is forbidden to enter this area and of course it is not allowed to take photos. He covers the camera with this hand and does not enable us to take photos. When the man was taken there, there were soldiers who mocked him and said that he was going “to 7 minutes of paradise”. In the meantime he has by there for almost an hour and a half. Another phone call to the DCO. Miriam is not there anymore. Uriel promises to take care of the matter.We report by phone to Naomi L., take the telephone number of the older detainee in order to hear from him what is happening. We left at 11:30.11:40 Tapuach Junction: There are 28 cars waiting in the queue.At about 14:30 we contacted Shahir, he announced that he was released but his friends was still in solitary confinement, lying on the floor, handcuffed, without food or water. At 16:45 we phone again and learned that Hanni too was on his way home.We do not know whether the releases were made after the General Security Services investigation, or whether the detention was altogether accidental, arbitrary and unjustified. Even if the two were suspects, there was not need to confine them for eight or five hours, in such degrading conditions.