'Azzun 'Atma, Sun 27.7.08, Morning
05:30 – We arrive at the entrance to ‘Azzun ‘Atma – “Shaarei Tikvah” (Hebrew: Gates
of Hope), and wait for a taxi to drive us to the checkpoint. Cars go by every so often to the locale, but a taxi arrives only after 15 minutes.
05:50 – Some seventy people are at the checkpoint. Inspections are slow.
06:10 – More pedestrians gather; we now count some 90 – 100 people.
Two men over age 60 approach the CP commander one after another. The commander, a first sergeant doesn’t want to tell us his name. They show him medical documents and ask, based on their findings, to pass at the side of the checkpoint, to avoid inspection by the metal detector. The commander doesn’t know how to read the documents, which are written in English, but he knows [enough] to tell them, after we report to him that the one man has had bypass surgery and the second an angioplasty, that they can pass through the metal detector. He explains to them that the instrument’s little spring won’t do anything to them. Their pleadings accomplish nothing, nor does their claim that every day they’re able to pass at the side of the barrier.
Our intervention provokes [the commander’s] ire. He makes a point of telling us that he relates to the Palestinians as to members of his family. We phone the IDF’s “Humanitarian Hotline” (Moked, that handles allegations of abuse); they promise to check the matter.
06:25 – The CP commander receives a phone call, after which he allows one of the two men to pass at the side of the barrier. (The second man meanwhile returned to the queue.) It’s unclear to us if this was connected with our having contacted the Moked.
06:35 – Some 100 people are at the checkpoint. A group of Palestinians standing beside the queue claim to the CP commander that they work in Elkana [an established Jewish settlement in the West Bank – ed.] and every day they’re allowed through without waiting in the queue. The commander rejects their request. Rina reports to him that when there’s congestion, it’s been the practice here to open an additional inspection lane. He hurries to explain to us that he does what he wants at the checkpoint, and adds that if we disrupt his working and stir up the Palestinians to rebel – he won’t let them pass.
06:45 – Fewer people are arriving at the checkpoint. The number waiting is now about 60 – 70.
06:50 – Seven people are detained. When we ask the commander why they’re being held, he responds that they’re not being detained, they’re “waiting.” To him, they claim that they’re residents of the village, their ID documents were taken from them, and they were apprehended, just like that, within the village. The soldiers give their version: they [i.e. the men] were on their way to Israel. Our talking with the detainees is viewed unfavorably by the commander, and he warns us again that he will shut down the checkpoint.
06:55 – We leave the place with a feeling that perhaps he will accommodate them by opening an additional inspection lane after we’ve gone. We learned afterwards from a Palestinian Rina phoned, that the commander didn’t ease up on them after we left. This man reported that he waited at the checkpoint for 45 minutes.
A taxi driver who drove us, told us that in the village school adjacent to Shaarei Tikvah a lavatory was built – and the IDF demolished it. A Humvee is going around by the boulders. It checks the ID documents of passersby. Its search for undocumented Palestinians (lacking a permit to stay in Israel) is unsuccessful, and it leaves the locale.