Jubara, Ar-Ras, Anabta, Tuesday PM, April 18, 2006 Watchers: Yael S., Amit Y. (reporting)Guest: Rina S. 13:30, Jubara: We drive through the gate into the village; quite a few children are already back from school, riding their bikes. The school bus passes by, and the driver smiles and hails us. Things seemed to have gone smoothly today, at least for the school bus. Jubara, western roadblock — “the Schoolchildren’s Gate” The gate is open; the soldiers tell us they opened it at 12:45, but they won’t tell us when they intended to close it. We drive through to the Ar-Ras roadblock.Ar-Ras CP: There’s an officer in command today. Politely he tells us that we’re not allowed there. He’s in the middle of turning away a young woman whose only identifying document is a Jordanian passport; apparently she passes there regularly with this form of ID, but today—with increased restrictions and security alerts [i.e. of suspected terror attacks] —she’s being turned away. Today only people who reside in the villages Gamal, Ras, Tzur, Khur, Jayyus, and Jubara are allowed to pass; since there’s no place of residence specified on the passport [as on the internal ID cards used by residents of Israel and the Territories], she’s denied. The officer is polite, but despite her and our attempts to reason with him, there’s absolutely no flexibility. We leave.The main roadblock of Jubara Again we’re told, much less politely this time, that we’re not allowed to be there. We ask why, and this time the soldier waves a piece of paper at us: “closed military area,” he says. We ask to look at the paper; Aharon Haliva at the brigade HQ is signed on it, and we decide to call him. It turns out that the closed military area only includes the Schoolchildren’s Gate, and Ar-Ras—the two places we drove to easily; the main Jubara roadblock is completely free to our access. Comment: I often encounter soldiers’ misunderstandings at the roadblocks (misreadings of IDs, misreadings of restrictions, mishearings of what Palestinians say, etc.); but as often as it happens, I still can’t help a moment of puzzlement every time anew. I mean, regardless of my opinion about the soldiers’ instructions, you’d think that they could at least get it right; so much for the myth of the Israeli military’s superb professionalism…At Jubara everyone can pass north, but back south only those who reside in the Qalqiliya region. The soldiers say that they notify people passing north about the difficulties they’ll encounter on their way back. Apart from a bored soldier waving a bat, nothing especially intimidating seems to be happening while we’re there.15:00, Anabta: Here are the restrictions at this roadblock for today: of the people coming from Tulkarm, only residents of the villages Shufa, Safrin, and Beit Lid are allowed to pass. It’s about a half hour’s wait by car, coming from Tulkarm; on foot there’s no wait. Only humanitarian commercial supplies are allowed to pass through to either side. Towards Tulkarm only 4 cars are waiting when we arrive; the soldiers are letting everyone pass in that direction, except for cabs from Jenin. But the soldiers here don’t bother telling those who pass to Tulkarm that they’re likely to encounter difficulties passing back. And so, 3 very elderly people—two men and a woman—who live in Nablus are trying to return back home from Tulkarm. The woman can barely stand on her own feet; but they’re all told to turn back. They’re not quite ready to give up, though, and so they keep on standing at the roadblock. We have no Arabic, and they have no English, so communication is hard. But we give them our water bottle, and try to encourage them. I look for a chair for the woman, but there’s none to be found. No waiting-area at the Anabta roadblock…We’re there with them for about 40 minutes, trying to get the Humanitarian Center [that handles appeals for medical and special needs cases] to intercede on their behalf, but to no avail. Finally we offer to ask a cab going towards Tulkarm to try to give them a ride through an alternative—obviously much longer—route. As we speak to a cab driver on the western side of the roadblock, the 3 elderly people arrive and get into his car. We continue to our car, and drive to Beit Iba. A few minutes later they arrive there too. What a surprising and happy reunion… we clasp hands, and a few seconds later they’ve passed the last roadblock on their way back home to Nablus.