PM

JUBARA - TULKARM, Sunday May 9 2004 PMObservers: Ada H., Ronny K. (reporting) colour=red> We began the shift at Habla checkpoint (army gate 1392-1393), which Ada discovered by chance last week. Located on the outskirts of Habla, a large village, on the right of the road to Qalqiliya, it's not far from the junction leading to the road out of Kfar Saba. You can’t see the checkpoint from the road – you have to turn right at the “Green Nursery Corner” signpost, drive a short distance alongside the hothouses, and then there’s an iron gate, right next to the school. The school serves the local villages too, and there are children from Jaljulya which is in Israeli territory – all of them are dependent on transport to and from school.We arrived at 13:30, and saw that the gate was locked. Bus-drivers whom we met there told us that the checkpoint operates three times a day – from 05:30 to 07:30, then 12:00 – 12:30, and in the afternoon from 16:00 – 17:30. However, once or twice a week there are problems with this routine - the children are stranded on the other side of the fence, labourers can’t get back home and so on. This is what happened during our shift. We heard from the drivers that the gate had previously been opened, but only for 15 minutes; when we arrived, they had already been waiting a long time (for the jeep to arrive and the soldiers re-open the gate). We also met four elderly women labourers, sitting in the heat. On the other side of the gate we could see dozens of waiting schoolchildren. We phoned S. from the Qalqiliya District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) [the section of the army that deals with civilian matters] (remembering good things about him) but he said he wasn’t in the area. So we left a message at the DCO, without knowing what this would lead to. Eventually, a DCO jeep arrived, with Major H. and another soldier, and they too, like us had to wait to be liberated by the jeep with a driver holding the keys. H. was friendly and courteous, exchanged information with the bus-drivers and women labourers (he gave his phone number to the drivers). After a short wait, we continued to Qalqiliya, deciding to return to the gate on our way home.Qalqiliya: A stench of sewage welcomed us – the system had broken down. The checkpoint was as we remembered it, the same blocks, the soldiers. Trucks and other vehicles were unloading goods, but there were only a few people to be seen. We spoke to cab-drivers who were sitting by the checkpoint. They described the arbitrary attitude of the soldiers who permit people to cross the checkpoint, or not, according to some arcane logic. We were emphatically told: “When you aren’t here, it’s a totally different story”. On our way back we drove through Habla, an hour had gone by yet still no one had come to open the gate .Tulkarm gate: We were surprised to see that the red signs had recently been moved 100 metres forward into the road (which is supposed to prevent people like us from getting closer to the gate). Goods were being slowly unloaded, but people were not allowed to cross over.Jubara: It was hot and dusty: on the main road, in the section close to the checkpoint, four lanes have already been paved! Next to the building at the entrance, we met a Palestinian resident of Israel who had had an argument with a soldier that morning – during which the soldier had damaged one of the tyres of his car. Since then, he’d been repairing it. He was very bitter (also about the day’s work he’d lost), and determined to file a complaint. The soldier in question was no longer to be seen, but the driver had his details (they didn’t seem reliable to us) and when we left, he was on his way to the police station.Family unification / separation: We encountered two cases of this kind during the shift. First – a woman from Taibeh and her husband from Tulkarm. Together with their baby, the couple wanted to return to Taibeh. They had a signed legal permit (at the top of the page was the heading “The Supreme Court”). But nothing they said could persuade the soldiers, although they knew the family well – they had already gone through the checkpoint. Only a phone call to the DCO - which brought Y., its representative, to the checkpoint - finally convinced them. Y. allowed them to cross right away. The second incident was similar, but before the couple was allowed to go, all their luggage was opened up and every last item checked.Detainees: We met five detainees when we arrived. They were sitting, without any water, in the burning heat. One of them, who was on his way back from Tulkarm to his home in Kafr Sur, looked clearly unwell (and he was the one that the checkpoint commander said looked the most suspect). Two of the others had been waiting, they said, since 10:00 (it was now 15:00). Y., the DCO representative, directed the soldiers to release them, but it took much longer, in fact until after we left at 17:00. A., the commander, apparently preferred the decision to be his, made in accordance with his own personal timetable (at this stage, our task was to be “couriers” and reminders).Just as we were leaving, we witnessed a dispute between A. and the passengers of a car, elderly labourers, residents of Israel, who had come from the direction of the settlers' road [there is a network of roads criss-crossing the occupied territories that is reserved for the Jewish Israeli settlers there, ostensibly as a "security" measure]. One of them didn’t have an ID card, but did have a driving licence, and two other identifying documents. A. demanded that they hand over the keys to the car, which he had decided to impound for a while, presumably as a "punishment". The driver refused to part with them ; an argument broke out, and A. snatched the keys. At our advice, they phoned the police.