Huwwara, Beit Furiq, Sunday 19.3.06 PM Observers: Judit B., Angela G. (MW Jerusalem), Galit G. (reporting)(Tal H., Noa P. and Naomi L. joined between their visits to Beita and Beit Furiq)The road to Zeita village is closed by an iron gate. At Zaatara Junction 46 vehicles waiting to be checked coming from the Norrth, 2 checking posts are manned by soldiers.15:30 – HuwaraCP commander – M. DCO representative A. is also present until 16:40.The fencing work around the pedestrian path inbound to Nablus is nearly completed. 3 soldiers erect the last wired segments of what is turning into one long cage. Piles of construction material and iron rods cluttering the center of the CP and jeopardize the pedestrians outbound who keep nearly tripping over them especially when night falls.16 vehicles wait inbound, the pedestrian shed is full to bursting with young old and women, 2 body checking posts process the crowd at a very slow drip. One soldier at the ID post nearly idle because of this pace, and a bored securing soldier.The X-ray truck stands at the detector-dog station and the wheel-cart porters load the luggage on the one side and run to collect it on the other.Upon our arrival Anwar turns to check vehicles and releases the pressure within minutes. The women’s special line is long and crowded. When we ask why it is not opened, he answers: “We opened it minutes ago, don’t worry.” Of course this does worry rather than console the dozens of people waiting, voicing their urgent need to get through.15:50 – the special side line for women children and the elderly is finally opened.2 taxi drivers whose IDs were confiscated by the soldiers of the morning shift come to get them back. M. takes them out of a box at the ID checking post. He admits this is a long confiscation – he’s been on duty for 3 hours already and the IDs were taken long before he started.We remind him that this is an illegal procedure.16:45 – first detainee in our vigil: an Al Najah University student thrown to the pen for “refusing to be body-checked and getting wild”. “I remember him” says a soldier watching him from the side, “he’s fresh”. The detainee, wearing only trousers and a shirt, claims the checking soldier tried to stick his hands into his trouser pockets as part of the search (very near his loins). The trousers are rather tight and there is no problem checking the fellow un-invasively. He is released after 20 minutes.16:50 – a youth from Askar refugee camp is taken out of the waiting line and led away by 2 soldiers. He holds a black bag, half open, and is sent carrying it out into the open field. The soldiers suspect that the bag contains an explosive charge and they send him to place the bag far away from the CP. The youth hops over the concertina wire, places the bag on the ground in the field and comes back. Now 5 hefty soldiers surround him. They say the bag contains a container that looks like deodorant but “bigger and heavier and wrapped in masking tape.” And no, they haven’t noticed any wire or cable attached to it.The boy remains silent. A few minutes later he is sent out again to the field to place the bag even further off. 2 soldiers accompany him, guns pointing. “Got a bullet in the barrel?” the one asks the other. Just to make sure, they watch over him from a distance as the boy places the bag on an earth mound and comes back, this time to be restrained and sent to the hold.The CP is all a-fluster – everyone is suspect, passage has been nearly completely stopped, the lines grow constantly, the tone back to threatening.17:05 – the company commander and 2 demolition experts arrive at the CP. They listen carefully to the ‘catch’ story and deliberate what to do with the ‘charge.’The expert asks if the bag can be brought closer for the robot cannot reach it at it present location. “What’s your problem? Let the boy bring it, at gun point”, suggests one of the soldiers.50 minutes the solution arrives in form of an army bulldozer that is sent to gather the bag and carry it over to the brigade compound nearby.17:15 – another taxi driver arrives to collect his car-keys, that were confiscated by the morning shift. A quick glance into the box reveals 4-5 sets of keys and 2-3 IDs. The company commander claims he knows of no punitive detentions and certainly no ID and car-key confiscations. A claim refute by the soldiers and in light of the ‘finds’ in the box.A 60-year old man asks us to ‘do something!” The waiting in line seems endless.17:40 – another detainee “both got fresh, and also came up in the ‘wolf pack'” (the army’s black list).18:00 – the restrained boy is taken away from the CP.18:15 – few pedestrians left at the CP, still along line of vehicles waiting, bound out of Nablus. Trucks are not allowed into town, try their luck in Beit Iba. A needless, expensive detour.18:40 – all hell breaks loose as a vehicle speeds through the CP southbound, according to the soldiers. A police jeep speeds after it, siren blaring. 6-7 minutes later a boom is heard from the southern CP area. Only after several vehicles crowd there, do we go to see what happened.On the road by the hitchhikers’ stop southbound, lies a Palestinian boy, 15-16 years of age, the white Skoda he drove totally smashed in front, blood on the car and on the asphalt. 2 Palestinian paramedics on their way to Burin were the first to treat him. Immediately many soldiers crowd around, an army ambulance is summoned and helps the paramedics. The boy is in shock and neither speaks nor cries out, although the paramedic reports fractures in leg, ribs and nose.The soldiers immediately interpret this to be a suicide terrorist. It’s the same car that sped through the CP a moment earlier, and according to them, while lying on the road he said he came to run over a settler. The Palestinians interpret this as an accident – that the boy stole the car, drove too fast, lost control, and collided with one of the concrete barriers that surround the hitchhikers’ stop. During the incident a young settler and probably another soldier were standing behind a barrier nearby.Settlers from nearby stations arrived, photographing the wounded boy and the crushed car, inside and out, one of us heard them singing ‘songs about Arabs’ – something in the line of “How nice it is to screw the Arabs…”Amidst the hubbub of soldiers, police, settlers and vehicles, we meet again the boy who was restrained and taken away in the jeep almost an hour earlier.19:30 – the wounded youth is taken into the army ambulance on a stretcher, a girl-soldier reports on her walkie-talkie that his conditions seems light (we’re not so certain). About 15 minutes later the ambulance takes off for one of the hospitals inside Israel (where he probably lies as we write, bound hands and feet as a dangerous criminal. We have no identifying data and did not try to find out where he was taken.)All this time, very few soldiers at the CP, the detainee is still waiting to be released, vehicles still waiting to be let through.19:45 – we left.Beit Furiq, early eveningObservers: Tal H., Noa P., Naomi L. (reporting)A few minutes before 19:00, the CP is closed and seems abandoned. Closing time has been changed just as arbitrarily as these decisions are usually made, and from this week on, exit from Nablus is only until 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. Instructions of the brigade command. How are the Palestinians supposed to know about this? “They know”…A vehicle coming from Nablus is surprised to find a closed CP. The driver descends, opens the iron gate arm, passes through, and closes it behind him.A soldier who rushes down to us from the watchtower accuses us in helping the man pass. Which is absolutely not the case.As we reach Kfar Saba (our point of departure inside Israel) phones start ringing – more and more alarms from Palestinians stuck at the CP and not allowed through by the soldiers.On our way home, we see 20 vehicles at Zaatara Junction, only one checking post.”The hope of us all” – concrete, blood, fences and endless humiliation.