Huwwara South

HUWWARA SOUTH, Wednesday 1 December 2004 AMObservers: Tushka K., Ilana H., (reporting)At 08:00 there were five detainees, among them was a young man without papers who had a sick small child with him. [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]. 08:30 – There were now seven detainees, two of whom were sent back. We interceded on behalf of the sick child. His father showed the soldier the medical referral to a specialist in Nablus. The soldier accepted it and the man and child went through immediately09:00 – There remained just one detainee . The checkpoint was quiet. A young man with a press card tried to jump the line. His pleas and documents were to no avail — he was turned back. A young woman with two sick children showed the wrong document (a lapsed Jordanian passport). We interceded, but the soldier insisted that he couldn't let her through. She pleaded and cried, and he eventually gave her a note and let her through. There were only very few people in line; the soldiers were courteous. When we left at 11:00, there were three very young detainees.