HUWWARA, ZA’TARA, Tuesday 8 June 2004 PMObservers: Tami P., Galit G., Gigi A. (reporting), and a guest, Ben colour=red>To start at the end: At the Za’tara junction we were stopped by a soldier, who took our ID cards and asked us to wait on one side. We were detainees for 45 minutes. The soldier talked to us rudely and ordered us not to leave the car. After a half-hour wait we got out to find out what was happening and he informed us that we were suspected of transferring “material” from the territories. ( Military equipment? Drugs? We had several bottles of guava juice, perhaps that’s what he meant…) He conducted a thorough search of our bags and of the car, and emptied the contents of the trunk onto the road. (A wrapped present in the trunk was broken). Galit took photographs and he was furious and said this was “a closed military area” and that photography was forbidden. Tami asked to see the order declaring this a “closed military area” and he showed her an unsigned form and said he was going to sign it. Only after we demanded that he call a District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) officer did he give back our papers [the DCO is the section of the army that handles civilian matters; it usually has representatives at the checkpoints , ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. Our car was blocking the junction and we wanted to get home safely. So we did all we could to conclude the affair, picked up the contents of the trunk and left.Huwwara South: Palestinians approached us in the parking lot and told us that taxis had been confiscated. A number of drivers were at the checkpoint and said that at 14:00, 25 taxis had been confiscated. The soldiers had taken the keys. The soldiers, for their part, said the taxis had been blocking the road. We tried throughout our watch to deal with the matter. We talked to the Army Spokesman’s office several times and they kept promising to check and inform us. We talked to R. from the DCO and when we told him that confiscating keys was illegal, to his rejoinder was that it might be illegal, but that’s what was customarily done. After we repeatedly insisted, a DCO officer arrived, said he’d deal with it and disappeared. At 18:00, the checkpoint was closed and the keys had not yet been returned The owner of a drinks’ kiosk who works at the checkpoint told us he’d been handcuffed for hours. The soldiers denied it, but one of our colleagues had reported the incident in her summary of the morning watch. He was forbidden to open the kiosk and his ID card had been confiscated. At the end of the shift, his ID was returned, but only after the soldier had written on it in red that he was forbidden to leave Nablus. In other words, the soldier had defaced his ID (we have a photograph).The soldiers didn’t permit bags and equipment to be conveyed from side to side of the checkpoint on hand-carts. This caused a distressing scene at the end of the watch.Za’tara: We were told there were problems at Za’tara so we drove there. There was a long line of cars in the direction of the junction; 15 detainees; and a particularly unpleasant soldier. Among the detainees was an asthmatic with medical documents who had been en route from Ramallah since the morning. He looked sick and weak and was very worried that he wouldn’t make it to Huwwara before the checkpoint closed. The soldier responded to our request extremely rudely. He told Tami that the Palestinians would rape her one after the other, and threatened that if she didn’t move away, he would handcuff the detainees. We contacted Physicians for Human Rights and the DCO and left.Huwwara North: The beginning of the watch was relatively quiet. A woman asked me to help her daughter, a pretty 12-year-old, who was confused and embarrassed, to go to the toilet. I went down with her among the barriers and after much uncertainty and checking of the surroundings we found a reasonable place protected from the eyes of the soldiers.We returned to the northern side before closing, and the checkpoint was tense. A woman and her two sons, one aged 14 and the other older, who had passed through loaded with packages, wanted to go back from the north into the checkpoint to pick up some more suitcases and parcels. Since there were no carts for transferring goods, the bags — carried by several young men — arrived long after they had crossed through. A soldier who saw the woman and her children running, aimed his rifle at them and began shouting. They turned and began to flee back north. The soldier ran after them with pointed rifle, and we ran after him and tried to stop the chase. There was a great commotion. The younger boy was terrified and screaming. The mother wailed, the bag carriers wanted money and the soldiers insisted that the checkpoint was already closed. It was exactly 18:00, a second earlier it had still been open. In the end, the bags reached their destination. The boy continued to cry. “Why’s he screaming?” asked the soldier. “Because a minute ago you were running after him with a cocked rifle,” I replied.The asthmatic from Za’tara finally reached the checkpoint. As he’d feared, he’d been released late and the checkpoint was closed. At our stubborn insistence, he and a sick woman with a medical referral went through.We stayed at the checkpoint almost an hour after it had closed. A number of people were still crowded beside the concrete barrier, including humanitarian cases, a family with a three-month-old crying baby and others.We left with heavy hearts, and then we got to Za’tara junction…..