Huwwara Beit Furik Za’atara Junc. Awarta, 18.9.06 Monday PMObservers: Riba B. Merav A. (reporting) Motti (a guest)Natanya translating.A very hot day and many events. Two detainees handcuffed with their hands behind their backs and blindfolded for hours on end. Another detainee kept four and a half hours in the isolation. A bus filled with elderly tourists from Saud iArabia has been on the road for three hours is not allowed to enter Nablus because of a technical problem with documents of the bus itself. A group of young settlers attack us and break the flat of Machsomwatch and the police chase us away from Beit Furik.14.20 -The gates at Marda and Zeita are open and there is no army prescence. 14.30 Checkpoint of the crossroads of Za’atra. The passage is empty and now and again from the north is a line but cars pass quickly.Limitations. 18-30 years of age from Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus not allowed to pass.On the western side of the checkpoint is a van with a frustrated and angry driver. He had not yet managed to get home after paying a fine of more than 2000 shekel for traffic fines when the same police van had stopped him and given him another summons. This time “only” for 250 shekel. The supposed reason was that in his papers it is written that he cannot take more than more than 4 people in the van. It does not matter that at the moment he is alone in the van. They gave him a summons on the PRINCIPLE he can take more at some other time than the permit allows. One of the policemen turn to us and say that it is a well known fact that they Palestinians limit the amount of passengers to four even though in fact it is possible to take eight. But this does not stop them from fining the driver and confiscating his license and others papers. We take his detailes. The policeman adds that maybe we can turn to the Palestinian authorities and get them to solve this problem??????14.45 Checkpoint Burin. No soldiers present on the road of Za’atra-Hawarra. The checkpoint on the road is working….in the direction of crossroads of Ji. 6 cars waiting.14.50 Hawarra. The checkpoint is very crowded and people say they have been waiting two and half hours even in the line of the older people. The younger people are in a much worse situation . Now and again we hear shouting and people push in the line. The women pass fairly quickly but they stand in the blazing sun. The commanders are sergeant Y. and his right hand sergeant R. A group of settlers, men aged 17-18, see us traveling towards the checkpoint and follow us and begin to harass us with curses…the usual. Traitors, villains, prostitutes of the Arabs, but at least they do not try to hit us. In the beginning the soldiers allow them to wander round the checkpoint at will. but when they approach the soldiers to have us chased away they sent them off. On their way, they break our flag which is on Riva’s car. It was good we had two. When we got to the checkpoint there were 4 detainees.One of them in the isolation was “bingo”. His name appears on the list of the secret service and each day they detain him for hours and then free him. Today he has been in the stinking and hot isolation for four and a half hours.On the ground of the enclosure is a man in his 40s His hands are bound behind him and a flannel covers his eyes. He says that he goes to Nablus for a medical problem with his eyes which is treated there. On the way home he was in the line when he did something which one does not do. He read a paper. Evidently the soldier started to argue with him because he was reading a a paper ( we were not there when this happened)and soon he found himself in the isolation. He says that the soldiers were prepared to release him quickly but a blue policeman would not allow this. He complained that his eyes were hurting and that he had a headache. When we asked the commander why he was handcuffed he said that he had “disturbed the peace in the line” and that this was so so that he should not run away.We never received a reply as to why his eyes were also covered and he refused to undo the blindfold. He was there like this for four hours (according to the soldiers) but he said five hours.Two other detainees were young residents of Nablu who were not allowed to pass the checkpoint.After some minutes another young man was brought to the enclosure also handcuffed and blindfolded. The soldiers says that a Jewish truck driver seeing him try to bypass the checkpoint had called them. He said that he lived in a village next to Za’tara and that he had been on his way to the quarry at Hawarra to visit his friend who works there. There the soldiers caught him and decided that he had been trying to bypass the checkpoint. After an hour the commander took off the blindfold but would not let him go. Eventually after 18.00 he was freed. Three hours. The representative of the District Coordinator’s Office (Mica) was at the checkpoint for most of out stay there. He agreed with us that the treatment of the detainees was not according to procedure and tried to change the decisions of the soldiers but to no avail. He phone the DCO in the hope that they would do something but this was not to be.For our entire shift. there were usually about 8 cars entering Nablus and 10 at the exit and the checking was very slow, the contents of all cars leaving Nablus were carefully checked. Every now and again the soldiers would simply halt the check. It seems that there were not enough soldiers checking both cars and the women. At one point cars entering were not checked for close to an hour. In the first car in line was an elderly man who was not feeling well but the commander would under no circumstances listen to the pleas of the driver to check the car and let them pass. We also could not help. Only when a captain with the rank of lieutenant came to the checkpoint with three other soldiers were the cars again checked and let through. The commander is to the point with us. But he passed from being to the point to being hostile. At one stage he turns to our guest. Mottie and asks him challengingly what he did in the army. Mottie says he was a platoon commander in the engineering fighting unit. “So what are you doing here with them then” is the reaction.16.20 Beit Furik. Little traffic or pedestrians. Besides the soldiers there are two female soldiers of the military police who were mainly busy laughing vulgarly at those passing. “Go back, go back. Yallah, Yallah go home” and also at the soldiers. A female student from Beit Furik could not pass even though in her id was written that she was from there. In the army computer she was written in as being from Nablus. She says this happens to her every few days, and then she phones her father to come to the checkpoint and usually they let her pass. And so it happened. Three elderly men, residents of a village next to Ramallah want to go to Beit Jan to a wedding.; The military policewoman refuses to let them through. The commander intervenes and the oldest of about 70 is allowed through. The policewoman is annoyed and the commander explains to her that he uses his discretion. An argument develops between the women soldiers and the commander and they say that they are stopping work. They leave the checking post and they stand outside. One of them explains in a monologue. “There is discretion and there is discretion. We cannot let everyone through. Why as I working if he lets them go through? He does not only show me up in front of them (the Palestinians) but there are rules.” For 15 minutes everything comes to a standstill because of this occurrence. Then the male soldiers are ordered by the commander to carry on the checking. After a long conversation with the line of command, the platoon commander, the commander of the women soldiers, they eventually return to work. The second in command of the regiment appears and says that he is glad of our presence and that we help the army. He says we should be involved but from afar.Two residentsof Jenin, brothers of 32 and 36 want to enter Nablus but the soldier refuses to let them through. We point out to the second in command about the ruling according to age and he tells the soldier to check with the communication device about this but the brothers give up and leave.As soon as he leave a jeep arrived from Nablus , blue police. “What are you doing here?’ he asks. He asks but of course the answer does not interest him or does the fact that we have permission from the army. He only wants to get us away from the checkpoint and says that he will arrest us “for our own security” if he sees us less than 50 metre away. In any case we had been intending to leave and do so.17.20 -At the turning to the checkpoint of Hawarra. A van full of young men is at the side of the road. Next to it an army jeep with a lieutenant whom we had met before at Hawarra. The driver is handcuffed with his hands behind his back and his eyes bandaged. The lieutenant says that they tried to bypass the checkpoint through the fields. They were just going to arrest the driver when the police jeep which chased us away arrives. The soldiers give their”booty” to our friends the police who free his hands and take off the blindfold. They take the van back into Nablus through Hawarra. 17.30 Checkpiont Awarta. 14 trucks at the back to back from the direction of Awarta and three from nablus. A red cross van is ordered to stand at the side of the road by the soldiers. They had been told that the van had tried to bypass the checkpoint. But when they realize that this is not the van that they had been told about they let him ago….10 minutes.17.50 Checkpiont Hawarra.- All the detainees have been freed except for the man in the isolation who is freed at 18.05.A woman standing in line cries. She forgot her id at home and is not allowed to pass. At our request the commander takes down her number and orders that this be checked in the computer. A few minutes later she goes on her way.A bus arrive with elderly tourists from Saudi Arabia. The permits of the bus are not on the name of the driver and they are not allowed to pass. They tell them to go back to the crossroads and try to get a tazi which has the correct papers. The driver says they have been on the road for three hours and have waited here for an hour and he cannot ask these elderly people to get down and go and look for a taxi. We try to deal with this through the “humanitarian centre” but the soldiers chase the bus away and the drivers drives off. We go after them but lose him …probably went to try his luck at Beit Iba.18.30 Crossroads Burin. Active with 5 cars waiting.18.40 Za’atra. 10 cars inclusive from both directions.