'Azzun 'Atma, Sun 5.4.09, Afternoon

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17:40

We stopped for half an hour at the checkpoint of ‘Azzun ‘Atma.  The policy of permits will begin tomorrow: there is an announcement at the checkpoint.  People are saying that they will not take them.  The army gives the permits to people so that they can go to work on their own fields, which are on the other side of the checkpoint which the army put there.  They won't take them, since they were not given to everybody and if they were given to a family, they weren't for the whole family.  I.e., the elderly father receives a permit, but the children do not.  So, when the father dies, they will confiscate their land and won't allow them to work.  For them, the moment they agree to take the permits is as though they are agreeing to the whole arrangement.  Friends say that the army is still patrolling in the village during the day and the night, at great speed in their jeeps.  They go out through the checkpoint that only they are allowed to pass through in vehicles.  Sometimes they grab someone on the street, briefly interrogate him, take him into the jeep and force him to show them the location of his house.