Huwwara

HUWWARA NORTH and SOUTH , Tuesday 2 November 2004 AM Observers: Yael P., Nurit V., Efrat B., Tal A., Etti P. (reporting) colour=red>There was a line of vehicles in both directions at Jit junction at 08: 00.08:15 The barrier at Huwwara South was closed and there was no passage, but about 30 people waited beside the concrete barriers in what was normally the “old people’s” line [this was one day after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv's Carmel Market which took the lives of three Israelis, with more seriously wounded.] The moment we left our car, a Palestinian came over and told us that a little girl had been run down and had been waiting for an ambulance for over an hour. We went over to the soldiers and the staff sergeant pointed to an intensive care military ambulance waiting beside the road, facing Nablus. Beside the ambulance stood the family members who said they had been waiting for 10, perhaps a maximum of 15, minutes. The paramedic said the child was only lightly injured. Beside the ambulance stood a minibus with Israeli volunteers who'd come to take part in the olive harvest with Rabbis for Human Rights organization: they had not been allowed through and were turning back.We went back to the crowd beside the barrier and met a woman and her friend with a small sick baby who was crying weakly and looking ill. While we were talking to Dalia Bassa, the health coordinator for the Occupied Territories, the baby vomited over its mother and over me, and we reported this to Dalia in "real time”. We approached the staff sergeant, who said "she can get into the ambulance when it comes to pick up the traffic accident victim if the DCO approves it" [the DCO — District Coordinating Office — is the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. Meanwhile Dalia was conducting conversations in Hebrew and Arabic with everyone possible about the ambulance and it finally arrived. However, the staff sergeant had not received specific permission for the woman and the sick baby and so the ambulance left without them. We talked to Dalia again, and she explained that the baby's mother was one of some 300,000 people barred from moving freely about the Occupied Territories. We approached the staff sergeant and asked if he would agree to let the mother’s friend go through with the baby and he said that if the DCO approved he was agreeable to this. The mother agreed and soon after the friend and baby went through to Nablus.We couldn’t help the other people in line – unexceptional people who needed to work, to go to court, to undergo medical tests or treatment or simply to visit relatives…they were not urgent humanitarian cases. We decide that our presence was not useful and might even be detrimental because it raised hopes in frustrated people and upset the soldiers who were uptight and irritable because of the recent terrorist attack and the reports that the suicide bomber[ a teenager from Askar refugee camp near Nablus] had gone through Huwwara checkpoint en route to Tel Aviv .9:30 -We drove to Beit Furik where nothing was happening and there were no Palestinians and not a single taxi.Huwwara North Here too there were no Palestinians and no vehicles. The barrier was closed and there was no movement.