'Azzun 'Atma, Tue 1.12.09, Afternoon

The upper checkpoint at 'Azzun 'Atma - lively traffic of residents of the village returning from work.  Occasionally lines are created.  When there is crowding, the soldiers man 2 check point in order to speed up the inspection.  By the side of the checkpoint a man is standing who seems to have been detained.  The soldiers are not at all happy to see us there and attempt to move us away from the checkpoint and to prevent us from photographing;  thus, we were not able to figure out the reason behind the detention of the man.  Not long after we arrived at the checkpoint, around 16:30, the man was released and went back to the village. 

Before he went, Miki got his phone number and, in a conversation later on the same evening, he told Miki the following details:  The detained man is the father of a 10 year old boy who has a malignent brain tumor. The boy is receiving chemotherapy.  During the early morning hours, the boy got a high fever;  his parents contacted the hospital and they were told to bring the boy in immediately.  The father, mother and the boy arrived at the checkpoint at 7AM and a taxi was waiting on the other side to take them to the hospital.  The female soldier who was at the checkpoint at that hour was busy with a telephone conversation.  After waiting a while, the father approached the soldier and asked her to check them and allow them to continue their way to the hospital, since it was an emergency.  In response, the three of them were detained at the checkpoint for 3 hours.  After 3 hours, the soldiers at the checkpoint gave the mother and the boy permission to continue to the hospital.  The father remained in detention the whole day.  He was released, as we said, only a little after we arrived at the checkpoint.  All together, he was detained for more than 9 hours. When he was asked by Miki why he didn't tell us all this while we were at the checkpoint, he answered that when they arrived at the checkpoint, the commander told him not to talk to us.  It seems that the man also was worried about complaining or going to the press about this incident because he has a sick child at home and another delay like this could kill him.