'Awarta, Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah), Thu 1.10.09, Afternoon
Translator: Charles K.
Along the road you can see the start of the olive harvest: families going to the olive groves,
collecting the fruit.
14:10 The entrance to Zeita from Route 5 is completely closed. No change, as always.
West of the Tapuach settlement they’re continuing to take over land and make it ready for agricultural (?) use.
14:15 Za’tara checkpoint.
Heavy traffic from the direction of Ramallah and from the direction of Nablus.
A private car in the parking lot has been selected randomly for inspection – all the doors are wide open.
The soldiers now allow other vehicles to go through without inspection of documents.
On the way to Beit Furik, as we turn onto the apartheid road which the army calls the “Madison route,” we see for the first time (!) a Palestinian taxi accompanied by a DCO vehicle, permitting it to drive on the road forbidden to Palestinians, and deliver a passenger going to the DCO.
A definitely unusual event – one that, we hope, will become a daily occurrence, and local residents will be able to use every road they need. Photo attached.
14:40 Beit Furik checkpoint:
Light traffic. We saw a vehicle going to Nablus being inspected at the checkpoint. The checkpoint commander said that it’s open 24 hours a day, “in line with the new policy.” A month and a half ago we were told the same thing by the checkpoint commander at the time.
14:45 Awarta checkpoint:
The soldiers are busy with something and don’t notice a truck coming from Awarta waiting for permission to continue to Nablus.
14:49 Huwwara checkpoint:
Random inspections; a car is pulled over. All the doors opened wide, passengers made to get out and wait. Soldiers inspect ID cards. The inspection takes 5 minutes. We didn’t see a dog handler or a dog.
Heavy vehicular traffic, as we said. Sometimes a truck is sent back to Huwwara and forced to make a complicated detour to the Awarta checkpoint.
15:25 A Border Patrol jeep is parked in the western parking lot at the entrance to Beita.
15:35 Za’tara checkpoint:
As usual at this hour, a long line of 36 vehicles waiting to see whether they’ll be inspected which, as usual, isn’t clear. The soldiers manning the positions don’t bother to signal to the drivers. Nevertheless, from time to time a vehicle is chosen for inspection. As soon as we arrived, two minibuses were stopped, and sent to the parking lot. All the passengers got out and had their documents inspected. The inspection took six minutes.
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