Morning

Watchers: H.H., V.B., B.S. and A.G.Summary: It seems that official policy to relax checkpoints may have beenmistranslated on the ground: soldiers seemed so very relaxed most of thetime, to the extent of relaxing completely: i.e. not working.By Tel Zion (a new haredi settlement faithful to Jerusalem and thereforeincluded in its “eruv”, supposedly a natural expansion of nearby KochavYaakov, Religious Zionist and determinedly Yesha!) we passed a “machsom peta” (random checkpoint) with 50 cars and lorries held up by foursoldiers. As we were 45 minutes late in starting (taxi driver overslept –only arrange via Abu Musa!), we only telephoned Na’ama, Roni Numa’sassistant: Neta there said she’d investigate and see if anything could bedone. Nearby, on Road 60 next to Beitin/Ein Yabrud, we passed a FordTransit stopped by a jeep, with three Duvdevan soldiers all aiming theirrifles at the solitary driver who was being made to take everything out ofthe vehicle onto the road. We stopped to monitor. The first words from asoldier was an order that we immediately leave, that we are destroying thecountry (“atem horsim et ha medina”), that this is a closed military area,we are endangering the soldiers and adding to their burden as they mustdefend us, that it is forbidden for us to stop on the road at all, thatrecently three children were killed in this very spot by a sniper from oneof the nearby Palestinian houses overlooking the road and finally, that ifwe didn’t leave the police would be called to arrest us. We refused to beimpressed or bluffed, demanded to see the order declaring it a closedmilitary zone and stood our ground. Having reminded ourselves at Tel Zionof some of the local celebrities, we said if that kind of languagecontinued, we’d lodge a complaint with Roni Numa, so the verbal abuseceased. Eventually, the question was whether we were helping or hinderingthe Palestinian driver’s treatment: we worried if we left he'd be badlytreated but if we stayed they'd delay him even longer. Once we saw he wasbeing allowed to put his spare tyre and bags back in the vehicle, wecontinued on our way, cheered somewhat by our taxi driver who said theTransit driver was surely extremely relieved to have seen us there.Zomet Tapuah, 8.45 a.m.: a real disorder!Over 50 cars, buses and lorriesand 100 people on the north side, straining to get through with fourparatroopersand two women soldiers doing no checking of IDs atall. The Palestinians said they had passed through Huwwara easily, only tofall into this honeytrap. We went into action, with our trusty mobilephones, to the IDF: so within ten minutes, the police from Ariel turned up!We had a short and to the point conversation with Huwwara commander’s wife,whose husband was sleeping. We spoke to various of our trusty comrades inarms: Guy in particular was useful because although not in the area, hetold us to call Munir, who said - on hearing the shouts of the crowd comingover the phone - he would see what could be done. Half an hour laternothing seemed to have been done, although the police (including one who washigh profile in recent olive harvests) seemed to be having meaningfulconversations amongst themselves. Return phone calls went unanswered; SMSmessages may have had better luck because sure enough half an hour laterthere was an IDF reinforcement, including Arik from DCO coming to therescue on his white jeep and the ten soldiers (the two women soldiers seemedinvolved in highly classified work [?coffee making] that we were not allowedto witness, but which involved standing motionless most of the time) startedto get the crowd moving. Backwards to the blocks. Forward to be checked.Backwards to one line. Forward to this piece of rope on the ground.Backwards to the blocks. Almost everything except through the ******checkpoint. Cars, including a UN vehicle, were not on the agenda at all,except when someone hooted and they were all told it was forbidden atcheckpoints. Can you imagine the strains of civilly disobedient hooterscoming in from all over the OPT reaching the Kirya!Ambulances were kept waiting but not for interminable periods:nevertheless, it’s distressing to see sick patients taken on rollingstretchers out of ambulances for full searches to be undertaken. I haven’tseen this on other ambulance checks: it seems exaggerated behaviour by anelite brigade working with less than urgent alacrity. One soldier on thehill overlooking us, not allowed to talk to us by order, nevertheless agreedwith our suggestion that “itzumim” (work go slow) was indeed going on here.Gradually, two at a time were able to cross, so by 9.30 the queue of over ahundred was down to 40 and we’d managed to view the contents on the groundof various bags, not to mention people’s clothing under jackets. Teacherstold us nowadays they couldn’t get to school in time for lessons – adistance of 20 minutes takes 5 hours – so many preferred to live all week atschool, but married ones couldn’t make such arrangements. Indeed, once itwas too late for three out of the four hours’ school time, movement seemedto speed up.But Arik was helpful in getting some of the problem cases solved.Nevertheless, one unfortunate man insisted hospitals in Nablus don’t havethe necessary equipment (?ultrasound) for his gall bladder examination, sodespite a letter from a hospital to that effect, he was refused entry andhad to return to Nablus: we gave him a Moked card and phone of Ibrahim atPhysicians for Human Rights in the hope his next hospital letter wouldn’t bedeemed a fake. Arik insisted that all hospitals in Nablus have X-Ray andultrasound..Beit Furik: We arrived at 10.25 to be “greeted” less than enthusiasticallyby six of Pluga 202's finest, an army jeep which withdrew as we arrived anda crowd of 70 villagers on both sides of the cp, who reported some had beenwaiting since 6 a.m. The huge crowd, including many elderly, was notallowed, by order of a 20-year old, to sit down. Two detainees, however,were forced to sit on the ground with their hands tightly bound behind theirbacks. When we approached a soldier to ask for the background to thisdetention, we were told they'd been there for about half an hour, would bereleased soon (we observed and made phone calls for an hour until they werereleased) but they wanted to “teach them a lesson” for trying to evade thecheckpoint. In terms of cabaret, these detainees were the centre of thesoldiers’ attention: a thirsty detainee had water poured down his throat bya caring soldier (we gave our water to others at the cp, which has none), atanother point they were given a plank to sit on, then that plank was takenaway in punishment because they dared to turn their heads around, they weremade to put their heads on the ground whilst on their knees but at 11.25a.m., their hands were unbound and eventually – soon after Arik arrived -they were released. Our complaints generally went unanswered both bysoldiers and by an army jeep that visited with an officer (and a confiscatedFord Transit vehicle in tow: later, a lorry was similarly impounded at thecp), but B. will be lodging an official complaint. On release, onesaid he’d been detained at 6.30 a.m. because he was found driving a stolenvehicle: he had bought it knowing it was stolen, but had paid for it.People said the second man was detained for having a problematic ID.A Palestinian speaker of Hebrew was elected by the army as a translator:his job to explain to the crowd that no one would pass through until theline was single, orderly, tidy, and well polished as the red paratroopers’boots. When checking did finally start, it was one directional: why? –they were not allowed to move both sides at the same time. Once Arik andhis white jeep arrived, at 11.35 am, things moved better. Women were allowed through, men over 35.In case the soldiers weren’t having enough fun, three were allowed out ontractoronim (beach buggy) rides to go hunting on sandy Palestinian roads (asopposed to the newly paved apartheid roads, part of $3 billion of Americanaid money for settler bypass roads which keep the Palestinians isolated evenfrom each other). Just in noise value, it must have been a lot of fun.Two soldiers on the cp took lengthy time out to quarrel amongst themselvesabout their food, which probably was good enough reason, but with 50 peoplewaiting on both sides of the cp for hours?? At one point they complainedamongst themselves the cp was “boring today”. They livened it up by gettingpeople to raise their jackets 20 metres away from them as they approached,by sending people home, and by mildly insulting us “You are no differentfrom them” (“at lo shona mihem”). If only they believed it, too.Huwwara cp was so different, it was almost surreal. Whilst not open likeQalqiliya that day, there was no work at all for us there, so we sped off(begging our driver to slow down!) in the direction of Sarra cp on the otherside of Nablus, connecting towards Qalqilya. Here we climbed a steep hill,alongside an old woman of 100 years' age (!) who took some of it on adonkey. Another elderly woman we passed on the climb was sitting exhaustedand overwhelmed on a rock at the side of the road. At the cp we met yetanother Palestinian woman with a blue ID who was not allowed to pass throughfor family reunification. We didn’t have time to go to the house on theother side which had recently been returned to its owner by its gratefulmilitary occupiers, but it still showed signs of being purely civilian.On our return to the taxis, we were told by one driver he had had his keystaken away as punishment for being too close to the iron gate across theroad – when he had merely parked next to another taxi.Another day of all the usual checkpoint syndrome behaviour.