JUBARA, Monday 21 March 2005 PMObservers: Riva B., Dafna P. (reporting) colour=red>The gate to Jubara was open when we arrived at 13:30, but the checkpoint commander wouldn’t let us go into the village. A soldier (perhaps he was a volunteer?) standing by the gate told us that this was an area within the Palestinian Authority, and therefore barred to us. Only people related to the inhabitants of the village were allowed in. Riva said that she had a friend in the village. He said that entrance was only for blood relatives.At the crossing in the direction of Tulkarm, in the open but undefined area where a soldier is supposed to stand and check those wanting to enter Tulkarm, there were about 15 detainees with Israeli ID cards , who were coming back from visiting relatives in Tulkarm but had not been in possession of permits to enter the town. Among them were a pregnant woman; a young woman with a baby in a carry-cot; several older women; an elderly couple —the man an Israeli and the wife a Palestinian; and a woman who’d passed through a few minutes ago, but seen the pressure on the taxis and come back. They all said that they’d passed through here on their way to Tulkarm (a few days or hours, or an hour, or a few minutes ago) and nobody had stopped them at the checkpoint, or asked to see a permit. Now, on their way back, their papers were confiscated because they had no permits.A. from the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] arrived to deal with the problem. He refused to believe the people who said that they’d gone into Tulkarm through this checkpoint; they must have used some other way. If they had done that, I asked, why hadn’t they returned that way? If they knew that here they’d be asked for a permit which they didn’t have, and would have their papers confiscated and have to wait for a long time, why would they have come back through here? But A. stuck with his refusal to believe them; he only believed the soldiers. He was polite, and calmed the people down, and it looked as if he was really trying to solve the problem. The young soldiers round him were hostile and nervous. They dealt with the detainees’ complaints impatiently, only in Hebrew, speaking in loud voices and behaving insensitively.We noticed that the soldiers didn’t always stand at the checking post all the time to check all those who wanted to enter Tulkarm. While one of them was occupied in moving a water-barrier whose purpose was unclear, I drew his attention to the fact that during that time 10 people had gone through unchecked. Nobody had asked them for a permit when they went in; so why were these people being punished now, when they were going out? Why should they have to pay for the negligence of the soldiers? One of the soldiers explained, inflexibly and without any hesitation:‘So what if there’s no-one at the barrier? They should have enough self-discipline to look for the soldier and show him their permit!’A. reported that the brigade commander had agreed to release the detainees, but that the decision had not yet gone down the chain of command. When we left the checkpoint at 14:30, some of the detainees were still there. We were told that this situation recurs constantly: the soldiers ignore people when they go into Tulkarm, but hold them up for a long time when they come out. Is this a game whose rules everyone knows? Do some of the people who haven’t managed to get permits take into account that maybe they’ll be detained on the way back? If so, can’t the army think of a better way to deal with the matter? It seriously delays the passage of other people through the checkpoint, for the soldiers are occupied with the detainees instead of ensuring swift and easy movement through the barriet for those with no problems. This evening, Israel is sheduled to hand over responsibility for Tulkarm to the Palestinians. It is unclear how this will affect the Israeli Arabs who want to visit their relatives there, or the time they may have to spend at the checkpoint on their way home.