Huwwara, Beit Furik

HUWWARA NORTH, Sunday 7 November 2004 AMObservers: Edna L., Lee K., Shelly M. (reporting)colour=red>07:40 – There was an unannounced checkpoint at Tapuah junction, with three detainees and 15 vehicles waiting to be checked.[Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. The detainees' ID details are phoned through to the General Security Services (GSS, also known as the Shabak or the Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym for the GSS) for checking against a central list of security suspects and the answers are then relayed back to the checkpoints. This cumbersome process can take considerable time, and that can be prolonged even more if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before passing them on to the GSS , or if they behave in a similarly tardy manner at the end of the process, waiting until they have a batch of GSS clearances before they release individual detainees. Meanwhile, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoint where the soldiers retain the ID cards until the entire process is completed]. 07:50 –At Jit junction, two jeeps and their crews waited at the roadside, but there were neither detainees nor vehicles.08:00 – Huwwara checkpoint was crowded , as usual, with separate lines for older people, women and men. The men’s line stretched almost as far as the market, passage was slow and there was dense crowding in the detainees' "pens". The commander was courteous and businesslike. When we arrived there were eight detainees but four were released after 15 minutes (having waited an hour-and-a-half).08:30 – Two representatives of the District Coordinating Office (DCO) arrived, and the crowding was solved by creating two more lines beside the barriers [the DCO is the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] . Women went through relatively fast, but some of the men waited up to an hour-and-a-half. The DCO representatives were very polite, listened to us and helped. They left at 09:40 when the checkpoint had emptied. We left at 10:15 with two detainees remaining (they'd waited half-an-hour) and very few people still waiting to enter. Special incidents:A father with a sick child en route to hospital was standing in line. The DCO representative agreed to let him through without a wait.A 16-year-old boy, without a permit, wanted to visit his mother who'd been hospitalized this morning after falling down stairs. The soldier refused, but the DCO representative let him through.An ambulance was checked with almost absurd thoroughness. The commander told the soldiers to leave the ambulance alone and deal with the long line of people.General comment: In contrast to the behaviour of an older, courteous volunteer, two young soldiers made humiliating jokes at the expense of the Palestinians. For example, when a muezzin went through in traditional garb, they mocked him and imitated the voice of a muezzin in a mosque. Beit Furik 10:25 — Since we'd left Huwwara early, we went on to Beit Furik which was also quiet. There were only few people in line and no detainees.On our way home, the driver received a telephone call from a Palestinian who reported that soldiers had stopped four girls who'd tried to go through the hills. Instead of bringing them down, the soldiers had gone on with them into the hills in the direction of the garbage heap facing [ the Jewish Israeli settlement]Yitzhar. He was afraid they would be harassed (possibly sexually). We tried to contact R. (of the DCO), the deputy brigade C/O, and the Army Spokesperson’s Office, all without success. The army's "humanitarian" hotline claimed that since they didn’t know the exact location they couldn’t help. I passed the information on to Naomi L. of the noon watch. .