Huwwara South

HUWWARA SOUTH, Thursday 2 December 2004 AMObservers: Tal, Tal L, Nava (reporting) colour=red>07:15 – The checkpoint was almost empty of Palestinians. People said it was because students didn’t go through on Thursdays [they may only leave for their homes on Wednesdays and return to their studies in Nablus on Saturdays — on production of a valid an-Najah University student card]. In the men’s line, the button operating the turnstile was not working and people had to stretch up to the top and release the brake by hand [these are not simple turnstiles such as one finds in a subway station, but high , revolving gates made of steel bars: each segment is barely large enough to admit one average-sized person; there is virtually no room to spare for anything that person may be carrying , whether a child or a parcel; passage for pregnant women or for the elderly is extremely difficult and frightening]07:30 – There were four detainees. We knew some of them from previous occasions and it transpired that the method of sending ID details to the General Security Services (GSS) had changed. The sergeant no longer telephoned the GSS, but had to wait for them to call him back when they became free. [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 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]. 07:45 – All the detainees were released.08:45 – There were five new detainees — all waiting for the telephone to ring.During the morning, there was little traffic and what there was flowed well. Only when one of the young men halted in order to argue with a soldier about the validity of his papers did a line collect behind the turnstile.The soldier checking the men talked crudely to them. The sergeant opened up a new line for older people and took care not to delay ambulances.On the way back – there was an unannounced checkpoint at the entrance to Huwwara village with 25 cars waiting on line. The officer said he had been assigned to this checkpoint because of the shooting this morning at nearby Awarta. All the stores in Huwwara's main street were closed. We couldn’t ascertain why.