'Azzun, 'Azzun 'Atma, Eliyahu Crossing, Falamiya, Habla, Mon 4.3.13, Morning

The agricultural gate at Falamya was closed because of a demonstration.  The childrens' buses at Habla went through quickly.

06:05  'Azzun 'Atma

Many people have already come through;  the gate is open and, behind it, is a line of about 60 people waiting.  Every time, the same number of 4 people go through for inspection;  when those are checked and released, another 4 go forward toward the gate.  All the rest stand about one meter back from the gate;  among them are soldiers who are watching them so that "they don't fight and so that they stand in line correctly".  It is for their own good, the soldier tells me, because passing is fast which is to their advantage.  During the time we were there, in spite of the fast passage, the line never got shorter since there were additional people coming all the time.

06:55  Habla

The soldiers have already opened the gate here, and at 07:00 the first people go through into the checkpoint.  Here, as usual, the passage is slower than in 'Azzun 'Atma, but there is progress.  In addition bicycles arrive, a wagon with horses, donkeys  and a herd of sheep is allowed to cross to the grazing land along the border, after this has been denied them for more than 2 months by our authorities.  They were punishing a shepherd, or, more exactly, his herd, for what the shepherd did which was not acceptable.  At 07:20 the childrens' buses arrive and go through smoothly.

We continued by way of Eliyahu gate - 5 cars are being inspected   and 5 wait in the pedestrian lane.  On the way back, no one was in the pedestrian lane and there were also no cars awaiting inspection.  The inspections were the same, with the dogs and everything.

'Azzun is open, there is  no obstacle to entering the village.

It was quiet when we arrived, only a tractor with 4 passengers came to the gate  - it makes a U-turn and returns.  Strange.

And then we understood.  The gate is closed and locked and there is no one in sight.  No soldiers.  In front of one of the closed gates, one can see a darkened area, as well as the gate itself, and then we understood that there had been a fire here.  The tractor driver explained  that a fire had been set yesterday, like in Jayyus a week ago.  We hadn't known about that.

We rang the DCO, and they said that the gate had been set on fire yesterday evening and that they didn't know when it would be fixed, maybe today or tomorrow, but meanwhile there is no plan to open the gate, and there is also a technical problem as a result of the arson in opening it.  He also said - they are "shooting themselves in the foot".  We will follow-up by contacting the tractor driver again.

All this and we can only report that no one can claim that they didn't know there was any problem with the occupation, that it is awful, that civilians are oppressed and also "shoot themselves in the foot", since it apparently is no longer painful.  During the past weeks, we frequently see things that the Palestinians do which could be called civil rebellion, even though it does harm their livelihood.

We continued to Madma in order to get the signature of a man on a petition to the court to release him from his status as "forbidden to work in Israel".