Azzun, Beit Furik, Huwwara, Jit, Za'tara (Tapuah), Thu 20.3.08, Afternoon

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Observers: 
Shosh B. Yehudit L. (reporting and photographing); Natanya translating.
Mar-20-2008
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Afternoon

14.07 Zeita...
The entrance is closed and at Marda the gate is open.
At Za'tara
 19 cars coming form the north and two checking areas and many soldiers.
 

14.16 Huwwara village 
A little distance after the entrance to Beita there are police who are evidently from a special unit and armed and one points his weapon at us as we go past. N. says that they are looking for stolen cars and evidently to us this seems more frightening.

At Yitzhar there are no soldiers and the temporary checkpoint has been changed but at the moment of truth the checkpoint will return as it was.

At Huwwara CP
It is a holiday...the birthday of the prophet Muhammad and there are few people at the checkpoint. Students are not studying today and the schoolchildren neither and the Ecumenicals say that there are few cars or pedestrians also from the distance of Nablus. There is no crowding at the checking areas of which there are two and the men come out as usual with their belts in their hands.

14.54 There is a new concept for those detained ..."wanted for questioning." No more bingo or the last 4 numbers. It sounds serious. The DCO representative also sees it as such as does not intervene. The detainee is from the Askar camp and had wanted to go through with his 3 younger brothers to see his father who works in the market at Beita and we could not find out his ID number so as to inform the centre. His phone has been taken from him and his younger brothers wait for him at the isolation until the father will arrive. It is really possible to regard this seriously.

We met R. whom we had hoped would have been helped by the Association for Civil Rights and who is always stopped at Huwwara because of his number and also at Za'tara. He smiles gently but one can really go crazy because of this situation.  I will again try to pass this on to Asaf hoping that something will be done.  Friends of R. say that at 16.00 his uncle is getting married and here he sits in Za'tara. They are waiting for him. We informed N. at the centre and at 15.26 he is freed.

We told the children who were waiting for their brother that we would come back to them.
 

15.40 Beit Furik
There is only one driver who says he has been waiting half an hour. Only one checking area is open and at the other are iron spikes.  We cannot see how many cars are waiting to enter Beit Furik. 
At 15.45 another checking area is opened. It seems that someone must have reported what was happening. 4 soldiers check, two in each area. IDs, baggage compartments, etc. are all checked fairly quickly and the cars go through and there are few people in the shed.

Seeing that someone does read our reports (fact....the window of the isolation has been carefully closed) I wish to bring up the subject again, an elementary subject about the fact that the biological needs of people are not taken into consideration.....for historical purposes so that someone should know we are talking about human beings here...women, children, the old all of whom here have to wait for hours and somehow to control their needs. I am not speaking of filthy temporary toilets.....but of these also....there are none.


16.32 At Huwwara
The isolation is empty and the children are gone. 3 young Bedouin from Beer Sheva have been detained because they entered Nablus. Their IDs have been taken and they do not understand why the soldiers address them so rudely.....shut your mouth, sit quietly ...one of them says that he has served in the army and does not accept this behaviour.

A man is in the isolation but the soldier chases us away and we cannot talk to him and when we phone the centre we are told he is being held for questioning.
 

Yitzhar is empty and so is Jit. In the illegal settlement of Shvut Ami there is a couple un the pink house.
A Hummer stands next to the entrance to Shave Shomron. 
Azzun
is blocked.