Jit Junction

Jit Junction, 30/05/06, PMObservers: Yael S., Amit Y. (reporter) 15:15, Jit: When we arrive, we find 12 detainees, among them a young child—probably about 5 years old. They say they’ve been detained since 11 am; the soldiers deny; they claim less than 2 hours. It then turns out that the soldiers are the ones who arrived here less than 2 hours ago—at the last changing of guards; the Palestinians were being held by Israeli soldiers for more than 4 hours. That morning, these Palestinians rode in 2 cabs from Nablus, and were stopped by the army on a road that recently became closed for their use (one of the roads in the Occupied Territories that is only open for Israelis). They were treated violently; one of the cabs was damaged—a broken mirror and a broken front-light, a dent in the roof and on the front of the car. There was also what looked like a blood-stain on the back edge of the car. The Palestinians told us that the soldiers yanked them out of the cabs and pushed them around. One cab driver had a fresh cut across his cheek beneath the eye; it had a piece of gauze and a band-aid fastened to part of it—the soldiers gave him this medical aid, after, first, inflicting the injury. We also saw dirt marks on the white linen shirt of one of the detainees; this man is paralyzed—he can’t walk—and thus was left in the cab while the other men were ordered to walk about 700 meters up the road to the checkpoint. But before they were ordered to the checkpoint, they were detained for 2 hours down the road where their cabs were parked. When we arrived, the second cab driver was lying on the ground moaning. He claimed to have a heart condition from birth; it was a hot day, they were held without water since 11 am, and—he continued to explain—a soldier grabbed him at the chest and pushed him. This was too much for him to take; he wanted to go to the hospital. We called Dalia Basa and asked her to send an ambulance. At some point an ambulance drove by, and we stopped it; but it already had a sick passenger in it, and seemed to have passed through here by chance. In any case, at first the soldiers didn’t allow the ambulance to park on the side of the road; they claimed it disrupts the traffic. Of course, the Palestinian traffic was already disrupted by the roadblock itself, so it was only the settlers’ traffic (in their special freeway lane) that the ambulance might disrupt; but it was standing on the shoulder of the road, and there really was no disruption. We insisted that this ambulance was sent by the Army’s Civil Authority, and that the soldiers must let the doctor do his job. It worked; and after some more pleading, they finally also agreed to return the sick man’s ID card and to let him go to the hospital. Meanwhile the rest of the men were becoming impatient; it was approaching 16:00 and the 6th hour of their detention was about to begin. They walked from the shoulder of the road onto the settlers’ freeway lane and sat down; if they’re being charged with disrupting the traffic, they might as well really disrupt it. There was a mess for a few minutes; 2-3 settler cars were backed up, and one settler got out of his car and went to speak with the soldiers. He was armed with a gun and two cell phones; his first remark was: “Is it because of these idiots?” and he pointed at us. We were just standing quietly by the checkpoint, observing the situation, hoping it doesn’t get violent. The soldiers, though clearly agreeing with the settlers, did show restraint; there were too many outside observers for them to repeat the morning’s violence: there were 2 European volunteers with The Association of Churches, 3 Palestinian journalists, and the 2 of us. The episode ended when an army car arrived and an officer stepped out of it. He was there to investigate the situation. And he did, though the results of the investigation remain unclear to us. We do know that he released the men, allowing 9 of them to go their way as they please, and ordering 2 of them back to Nablus. He was, at first, going to send all of them back to Nablus, but as we asked him politely to explain his policy he agreed to check today’s special commands; it turned out that only men between the ages of 15 and 30 who live in Nablus and do not hold special permits are denied travel today; the rest of them should be free to move about (“free,” of course, means the very limited—almost cynical—freedom that the roadblock system enables). But we don’t know whether the violent soldiers were disciplined. At 16:45 we were ordered by the officer to clear out, before he concluded his investigation. Here’s what happened: An orthodox man and a woman in their 60s dismounted from a settlers’ car; without pausing to consider the situation or to think anything at all, they just started screaming at us: “You are yudentrat; you are idiots; why can’t you stand it if Jews manage to live well in their country?” We didn’t reply; in addition to being tired, we were also quite shocked by this absolutely random attack. It was loud and messy, but it was only the settlers who were being loud and making a mess. Nonetheless, the officer’s way of dealing with it was to expel us from the place. I suppose he himself was intimidated by the settlers; they seem to be at the top of the chain of command in these wild-wild east territories...