Huwwara

Huwwara 20 August 2007 Watchers: Michal P., and Yifat D. (reporting)Translation: Suzanne O.In general: There is no doubt that among the forest of illegal orders given to the soldiers and the thousand headed bureaucracy, the obvious fact is that the soldiers do not get clear explanations respecting acceptable behaviour on the part of the army at the roadblocks. When these same soldiers have to train personnel from security firms misrepresentation will be added to misrepresentation and irrationality to irrationality. 7:11 a.m.There is no roadblock at Jit Junction.7:20 a.m.There is no roadblock at Yitzhar/Borin.HuwwaraTwo Ecumenicals have been present since 6 o’clock this morning: Karina and Helen, who tell us that it is relatively quiet today. (That is, there is no open violence such as curses, shouting or beatings.) They tell us that the soldiers detain people from time to time and check their cell phones very thoroughly.Two checkpoints are functioning as usual. People wishing to cross have to undergo an inspection including: going through the magnometer after removing belts, lifting their shirts publicly if the magnometer is still beeping, I.D. card inspection, inspection of large bags through the x-ray machine at the other end of the roadblock, small parcels are checked manually.A young man is detained; the soldiers show the photographs on his cell phone to each other. They discover a photo of him with a rifle and one of them shouts triumphantly to Michal – you see, that’s why we have to look through things. Michal asks innocently what the difference is between the weapon in front of her and the one in the photo.There is no separation. There is no DCO officer. There are few people at the roadblock.Beit Furiq7:50 a.m.A man with a Jordanian passport and with no Palestinian I.D. card has been detained for about half an hour. When the soldiers notice that we are talking to him they start to deal with the passport and ask one another what to do with it. The roadblock commander then declares that no one will cross the roadblock until we move away. We try to agree a place with him (near the detainees’ hut) where we will not interfere with those crossing, with no success. The traffic at the roadblock stops. The number of people at the roadblock rises to 40 and we move away so that they can continue to cross. Even from a distance we observe that the soldiers’ language and movements are disrespectful. They force people to bare their stomachs in front of the young female soldier, to prove that they are not armed. When there are no more people we move nearer and then the traffic is stopped again.The soldier inspecting the cars instructs one of the drivers to remove four of the crates in his car and to open them in front of him.The detainee is still here.Huwwara8:40 a.m.The coffee sellers: youngsters of 18 years of age (the soldiers) come to remove kids of 14 years of age who are selling coffee to taxi drivers so that they can help to support their families.A fresh soldier checks cars: the car belongs to the person in the passenger seat next to the driver, who is the passenger’s cousin. Only the person with the permit can drive. The soldier goes to confer with another five soldiers but, despite our fears, does not insist that the cousins change places but lets them through.“Soldier, soldier. Why’s he wasting my time, I cross the roadblock every day and wait an hour here and an hour at Za’atra, cross twenty times a day, why does he take my document and tell me to wait a long time”.A soldier notices that at the turnstile at the entrance to Nablus (with no soldiers in charge of it) a woman is trapped and he calls to his friends to help her. They are surprised at his enterprise and say to him: “She’ll get through”. In the end she does get through and the soldier, embarrassed, returns to his place.Sometimes the soldiers prefer to chat rather than do their work, particularly the boys with the girls and vice versa.A female soldier asks a male soldier if a wrench and a screw driver can be taken through, it turns out that they do not get any guidance on such subjects.Za’atra/Tapuach9:42 a.mThere are two buses at the roadblock whose passengers have been taken off. When we arrive the inspections is completed. The passengers of one of the buses tell me that the inspection took ten minutes. A dog handler and her dog are present and about five civilians are at the checkpoint. No, they are not civilians says the roadblock commander but he will not tell me who exactly they are. No need, we understand. They are employees of a civilian security firm who seem to be being trained for when the roadblock is passed to their control. The training scenes we witnessed were particularly ugly. Apart from the fact that the inspection takes much longer we see a woman amused by the Palestinian I.D. cards as she stands opposite those being inspected and shows a colleague something in the I.D. card and laughs: “Wow, look how funny it is”. Cars are also inspected unusually minutely and one of the civilian inspectors insists that the Palestinians being checked (five youngsters) empty the contents of their bags (which consist mainly of clothes) on the floor. “Would you like your things to be checked like that?” Michal asks the inspector and he answers with unrestrained anger. At ten o’clock we left.At the Israeli entrance to the West Bank there is a Border Police roadblock.