Anata, Ar-Ram Thursday, 16/6/2005, AMObservers: Ruth E., Aviva W., Rama Y. (reporting), 4 guestsAnata was quiet. Even the car line wasn’t long.Ar-Ram. Upon arrival, 6 man and one woman came to the CP from south – they had been apprehended while trying to bypass the CP, their IDs were taken and they were sent to the CP (later on their number grew up to about 20). One of them, from Ramallah, told us that his 5 months old son had been taken in an ambulance the previous night to El Mukassed hospital in Jerusalem. The baby had to be operated on at 08:00 that morning, and the father had to sign a document of approval. As he didn’t have a magnetic card (DCO Beit El is temporarily closed), he had tried to sneak into Jerusalem and was caught. The mother was at home, recovering from an operation, and the baby was all alone at the hospital. A long and impossible bureaucratic odyssey started at this point. the CP’s commander claimed that the man was no concern of his but of the police; and anyhow, his ID was with the BPs who had apprehended him, and with no ID nothing could be done; and why hadn’t he gone to DCO Beit El in the first place for a permit; at least he should have a letter from El Mkassed. Of course, in order to have the letter from El Mkassed he had to enter Jerusalem, but there was no way he could enter Jerusalem. And so on and so forth. We called anyone we could think of, to no avail. The fact that a 5 months baby was hospitalized and his parents were not with him, that he probably was in a critical state and had to undergo an operation that very morning and this couldn’t be done without his parents’ approval, all this didn’t matter. It was clear that no one would take responsibility and let the father get to his baby, that the greatest risk from the point of view of all the many people we talked to was to be reprimand or even court marshaled for doing what they really had to do, and not the risk to a Palestinian baby’s life. The BPs who had apprehended the detainees arrived with the IDs. The soldiers said that the man’s ID was not brought in. This was not true; and this was not the only lie we were told that day. In the meantime it became apparent that the man was on the GSS list, and as such stood no chance of entering Jerusalem at all. And yet the only solution that seemed possible was for him to go to DCO Ramallah for a permit; one of our contacts even suggested that he get a letter from a doctor to expedite things. It was not clear at all whether he could or could not enter Jerusalem. It was far after 08:00.By then, all the detainees had to move to the other side of the CP, and were hidden from us. M., the deputy battalion commander, let us though have the man’s phone number and his ID number. It was after 10:00, and the man was finally free to go to Ramallah (the other detainees were still held, and as far as we could see, none of them had been released yet. M. said that they would be released soon). During the day we kept in touch with the man. Yael S. (mWatch Jerusalem) was a great help. At a certain point it was claimed that the man was a liar, and there was no baby. Then it was revealed that he was no security risk at all — he had been confused with someone else. And anyhow he shouldn’t have gone over to Ramallah DCO, they couldn’t help him; he should have gone to Beit El DCO, but it was closed. Yael made them open it especially for him, and finally he got a special permit for three days. It was after 19:00. As for the baby, the mother did manage somehow to get to the hospital — someone accompanied her — and he was operated during the day.[The ID number is a must in such cases; nothing could have be done for the man without it]