Huwwara North

HUWWARA NORTH, Wednesday 29 December 2004 PM Observers: Tzvia S., Nurit W.-L. (reporting), Yael, and Karin, a doctoral student from France colour=red> Summary: There were fewer people than usual, and passage was quick; but we experienced strange and infuriating behaviour by the checkpoint commander.There were no detainees at the Tapuah (Za’tara) crossroads "unannounced" checkpoint . About 15 vehicles stood in line to be checked. It was getting late, so we didn’t stop.1500: There were fewer people than on previous Wednesdays (Wednesday is the day that an-Najah University students go home for the weekend), apparently because it was the end of the calendar year. Passage was quick , the soldiers used a computer, right through the shift, though occasionally the well-known degrading episodes recurred – pushing, and offensive shouts.When we arrived the drivers of two taxis and a minibus had been detained for more than an hour. [Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. There has also recently been a downward shift in the ages affected – now from 14 to 30 — but this can vary. 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]. It turned out that they had gone over the ‘line’ [which keeps them at a certain distance from the checkpoint proper – and also from their customers]. Fortunately, friends or relatives had removed the vehicles. One of the drivers , who spoke Hebrew, said that this was the first time he had brought anyone to the checkpoint, and he had not been aware that there was such a line. He did not argue with the soldiers who detained him, but he didn’t quite understand why he'd been detained. All he wanted to do was to provide for his family (three children). We spoke to the checkpoint commander, Y., and asked about the detainees. The reply was strange: They’ll stay here for two or three hours, as long as possible, until the police arrive. I expressed surprise at the need for the police, and the reply was: ‘Because...it’s not your business.’ When we insisted that no-one should be detained for an unreasonable length of time, and that we had a written document on the subject, he made a derisive gesture, and from then on the soldiers didn’t talk to us – apparently at his orders.There was no District Coordinating Office (DCO) representative on the spot [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] . We tried, unsuccessfully, to contact R. at the local DCO, but at least the soldier at the army's " humanitarian" line listened to us. We gave her the details of the detainees, she asked us for the name of the checkpoint commander and began to look into the case. 15:30 — When Y. noticed that we were talking on the telephone, he decided to take action. He spoke to the detainees, and, emphasizing that in any case their vehicles had been taken away, suggested that he would release them, on condition that we left the checkpoint (perhaps somebody had phoned him meanwhile). We explained to him that this was not a closed military area, but he insisted. We returned to the checkpoint after the three drivers had been released.After I had been observing the line of vehicles for a short while, Y. asked me for my personal details. I told him my first name, and said that I’d tell him more if he gave me his details. To my surprise, he gave me his name and number. Nonetheless, we talked to him about the incident: all we’d done was to talk to him once, politely and without being provocative . He complained that in the past when he had asked our colleagues to go away and not ‘disturb’ him they’d done so. We answered that we hadn’t known whether he wanted us to go away for a few minutes, or to clear out altogether; and he couldn’t turn us out without a Divisional Commander’s order, since the checkpoint wasn’t a closed military area. He also asked us not to talk to him about the Palestinians. We said that if a representative of the DCO had been present we would have approached him, as is usual. But since there hadn't been one , and we’d often been asked not to bother the soldiers, but to approach the checkpoint commander directly, we’d done so. He had to agree.I stress that the soldier at the humanitarian centre spoke to us again twice, and we informed her of what had happened, and of Y's strange and inconsistent behaviour.16:15 – There was now one detainee, a man who used to work at the checkpoint, and is now in Huwwara since his cart had been stolen. He'd been wounded in the foot in a shooting incident and had also experienced "losing" ID card at the checkpoint, as a result of which he'd had had to ‘buy’ a new one at a tremendous price. He was released a half-hour later. We left at 17:00.