Tayasir, Hamra, Thursday, August 24, 2006, AMObservers & reporters: Anina K, Yehudit H, Revital S. Guests: Yehudit, Nira A07:00 – 09:30Hamra, 07:00Twenty cars from the West Bank to the Jordan Valley are waiting at the junction. The passengers have alighted and the men obeyed the raised shirt and trouser leg routine. The cars are being checked thoroughly. The workers, who are usually all through by 06:30, begin to pass only at 07:30. Some came on foot and waited east of the vehicle checkpoint for the inspected cars to take them on to work. They have been waiting since 05:30 – residents of Tamun, Fara and Tubas, on their way to Tamar, Gitit, Roi and Beqaot.Three Israeli contractors came to try and speed up the passage of their workers. One of them tells us, in a sort of collusion, that we are all of us – MachsomWatch and he, too – in the same boat: we all want the transit to be faster. “Nothing to do about it!” he says. We reply that, as it happens, there is. It is possible not to sit on occupied land. But we don’t continue the sterile debate.Two Palestinians are going eastward, on the dirt track that comes down to the checkpoint. The soldiers jump. With raised weapons they call on the two to halt. The men raise their hands, roll up their clothes, and are allowed to continue on their way.Apart from the especially meticulous checks, the line is being delayed today at internal checkpoints between Beqaot and Tubas, at Yamun, Fara and Siris.Teachers who came to work for the new school year left Tubas at 04:00 and got through at 08:00.A family returning to Jiftlik in the Valley from a family visit in Tubas in the West Bank, wait three hours at the checkpoint in order to return home. The father of the family sounds bitter, depressed and saddened.We are told of one detainee, but are not permitted to approach, and cannot clarify the matter.08:10 – we leave. Again, 20 cars from the West Bank are waiting to enter the Rift Valley. From the Valley, there are only a few vehicles which alternate in passing with cars from the other direction.Tayasir, 08:50Four cars waiting from the Rift Valley and two from the West Bank. The two pass almost immediately as we arrive. People tell us that it is only when we arrive that they begin to pass.Today, all passengers alight and each one goes over to the checking station to be inspected and have his ID matched to the list. Usually the driver takes all the documents while the rest of the passengers wait by the cars.09:00 – A soldier in a T-shirt turns up and asks his comrades, “Who are the tourists?” – meaning us.09:20 – We did not succeed in getting an answer from the soldiers as to why no one is passing. We phone the District Coordination Office and report that for 20 minutes there has been no movement at the checkpoint, even though five soldiers are sitting here. Passage is renewed 10 minutes after our call. The DCO representative says that the T-shirted soldier brought breakfast, and that is why there was no activity.09:30 – The checkpoint commander comes over to explain that it is dangerous here – there was a terror strike on Saturday. We explain to him that it wasn’t a terror strike and therefore we are not in any particular danger. A soldier of the occupation army was shot and killed by someone from the occupied population. A terror strike, we explain, is if we are killed by premeditated violence in a mall in the city where we live, within the boundaries of Israel. Meanwhile, his men shout at us: “Get away from the checkpoint!” and shortly thereafter that is what we do.When we leave there is no line in any direction.