Hywwara

Huwwara South Tuesday 22 February 2005 Watchers: Tal A., Nurit V., Lirit L., Yael P., Rachel A., reporting: Ettie P. Summary: The shift started quietly and became painful and frustrating.8.15 a.m.Four soldiers including the commanding officer Tsachi. No-one held and no queue.A car with three Palestinians: One has a Palestinian I.D. card and is a regular with a pass in his car, the other two have Israeli I.D. cards – Jerusalemites. They claim that they have a permanent arrangement with the D.C.O. and they come through regularly. The representative of the D.C.O. Oleg, checks and informs them that they do not have such an arrangement with the D.C.O.. It appears that one of them works for the Arab Bank and he is an advisor with the C.H.F. (an American financial organisation which gives aid for building in the territories) and he shows a document of theirs but Oleg argues that it is a pass to enter the office and not an employee’s pass. In fact, he wants to go to Nablus as an employee of the Palestinian Telephone Company, Paltel, and needs to be there for just half an hour. He did not know that he needed to approach the Officer of Public Applications to get a pass to enter Nablus and tries to get Oleg to turn a blind eye, as he puts it. Oleg does not agree and I contact the D.C.O. to try my luck. Assaf tells me that he can try and get him a pass but it will take a good few hours and it is not certain that it will be ready today. They are not sure if they should stay and once again try Oleg but in the end the one with the Palestinian I.D. card goes through and the others return to Jerusalem.Tsachi explains that the carousels are back in service but he does not use them unless it rains and they need shelter.Meanwhile from time to time the queue grows but the soldiers deal with it quickly.Three men: one has an Irish passport, a lecturer at the University of Beit Lechem, the second has an Italian passport and the third a Palestinian accompanying them, they want to enter Nablus. Now I become aware of a possibility which can help in a case like this, as Oleg from the D.C.O. explains. If a foreign passport holder knows someone who holds a post in a recognised international organisation he can contact him and the post holder can contact the D.C.O., speak specific officer who is responsible for foreign passports, and vouch for him in the name of the organisation. Thus he can enter without prior notice. The Irishman contacts a friend in the U.N. and waits for the pass to be sent to the road block.A Palestinian approaches us and asks for help: a friend of his, an Israeli Arab, the owner of a truck from Tamra, was arrested yesterday by the Huwwara police when he wanted to go to a village in the direction of Beit Furik. The police took him and the keys of his car and his wife who was with him in the car does not know where he or the car is. I telephone the police and am passed from place to place: investigations, remand and again investigations and then the Ariel Police duty officer: no-one knows anything – in the end I give his full name to the remand office and it is clear that he is not there. It is beginning to sound Kafkaesque and I start to phone and get this question from the police: are you sure it is not the army who took him? Ask the army. I try to remind him that we are talking about an Israeli citizen like him or like me and the army cannot arrest him, but it seems that the policeman is unable to differentiate between Arabs – one law for them all. I approach the officer, 2nd lieutenant Ariel, and emphasise the seriousness of the phenomenon of a citizen who disappears after the police have taken him and that his wife is hysterical and crying on the phone. He speaks to the police on his MIRS phone and the policewoman asks for details which he gives her and she promises to get back to him.Later I asked Tami Gross who was on the afternoon shift to talk to him and he told her that the man was in the Yiftach police station and his wife knows he is there. I passed the issue on to Ofra Katz of Machsomwatch to monitor it.Ettie Paz