HUWWARA NORTH, Wednesday 9 June 2004 PM Eilat B. and Deborah L. ( see separate reports on Beit Iba and Huwwara South) colour = red> We went first to Shavei Shomron at the request of a Palestinian who had asked N., our driver, if we could ensure that a bus that had just left Beit Iba would get through that checkpoint without all the passengers being stopped again. Surprisingly, it worked. We told the soldiers the bus had just left Beit Iba and that the passengers had already been checked there. They let the bus through even though the driver had jumped the queue. En route to Huwwara there was an unannounced roadblock , not at Jit [where this frequently happens], but about 200 meters further on; there were no detainees. We arrived in Huwwara North at 14:45, to be told immediately that it was a “closed military area”. We asked to be shown the official order to this effect, but the soldiers didn’t have one! [Such a trumped-up claim is sometimes used by soldiers in an attempt to get Machsomwatchers to leave a checkpoint] .Eilat was asked for her ID card as she went through the checkpoint [it is unusual for Israelis to be asked to identify themselves}. They then refused to talk to her, and she left for Huwwara South.There were very few people on line and only one detainee. It seems the students are on vacation. There were nine vehicles trying to leave Nablus and two trucks waiting to enter the city. Some 16 taxis and two vans were in the parking lot for confiscated vehicles. The four soldiers on duty were not enough to handle the vehicular traffic efficiently, but were sufficient for the pedestrians. The wait for vehicles was at least an hour in some cases. Most people without permits were sent back immediately and not allowed to wait for their details to be checked by phone . There were a couple of people in the 16 to 35 age group [who usually fall under suspicion by the Israel security authorities] with notes from doctors that they had been in Nablus for medical examinations . They were not let through. They didn’t have permits. I was told that anyone can buy such a note for NIS 10. The soldiers were not easy to talk to and did not want to be helpful. They had their view of things and they were handling matters in their own wayThe one detainee who had been there when we arrived must (according to the soldier) have gone around the checkpoint on his way into Nablus and now, on the way back, he wanted to go through the checkpoint. So, even though the check [ of his ID card details] had come back [ from the General Security Services — also known by the Hebrew acronym Shabak or Shin Bet — ] as unexceptional, the soldiers had decided to make him wait as a “punishment” [the legality of such punishment is more than questionable]. Later, the detainee told me that he hadn’t gone around the checkpoint. He had been let through Huwwara South after having his ID checked. He said he worked in the library in Nablus. When I told the soldier this he told me that his fellow soldiers had told him otherwise and he believed his friends more than the Palestinians. Nothing I said could persuade him otherwise, nor could I persuade the representative of the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the section of the army that handles civilian matters and usually has a representative at the major checkpoints].Of the three other detainees held later, one was the driver of a van for a Palestinian charity organization who had not stopped when going through Huwwara South, and so was stopped when he got to the north. One was a man without a permit who was nevertheless able to convince the soldiers to check him out ; the third was a young boy who had been wandering around the checkpoint and whom they released quite quickly.