Huwwara

HUWWARA, Thursday 25 November 2004 AM Observers: Michal S., Tal B., Naomi l., Dorit l. and Asnat O. (reporting) colour=red>06:40 — There was an unannounced checkpoint at the southern exit from Huwwara. We were not sure why this was so.06:45—Huwwara SouthWhen we arrived there was already one detainee. [Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. The detainees' ID details are phoned through to the General Security Services (GSS, also known as the Shabak or the Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym for the GSS) for checking against a central list of security suspects and the answers are then relayed back to the checkpoints. This cumbersome process can take considerable time, and that can be prolonged even more if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before passing them on to the GSS , or if they behave in a similarly tardy manner at the end of the process, waiting until they have a batch of GSS clearances before they release individual detainees. Meanwhile, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoint where the soldiers retain the ID cards until the entire process is completed]. .07:00 — Huwwara NorthThere were about 150 people waiting to go through the checkpoint, but only two soldiers working. A young woman who went through asked us to come every day because, so she claimed, the line only moved fast when we were there. Despite the shortage of manpower, the soldiers were behaving well. A soldier took an ID card and tried twice to have it checked to help a young man who needed to reach Jordan and had been refused.07:25 – Only one soldier was left as the other had gone off somewhere.07:30 – A soldier from the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] arrived to check the women. There were 200 people waiting on line by now. S. contacted the Judea and Samaria division to try to request more manpower. She got a long and endless run-around until finally she reached the division's spokesman who refused to help because of the recent incident [with the Palestinian violinist whom the soldiers asked to 'play a sad tune' at the checkpoint – the scene appeared on television programmes and newspapers throughout the world, reminding many of events that took place over half a century ago in Nazi-occupied Europe]. What angered him was that this episode had been reported to the press and not to him directly07:40 – A third soldier arrived.07:45 – A woman soldier arrived who checked only women.07:49 – One of the soldiers took a cigarette break and chatted to the woman soldier. When we commented, he took over from one of the other soldiers.07:50 – The woman soldier came back to check the women.07:53 – There were no more women in line. The woman soldier continued her chat. There were about 100 people in line, and the talkative soldier devised a method of his own, letting groups of five or six people through the back gate and then sending them to the front gate, creating crowding, shouting at people but not opening the gates.08:20 – There were now about 50 people in line. The woman soldier was still chatting with the other soldier and had moved closer to him so that the women had to move and this created confusion.08:43 – An older man and his 20-year-old son who was due to have an MRI scan at Ramallah at 10.00 had been detained for an hour and the father was afraid his son would miss the appointment. Asnat contacted the army's "humanitarian" hotline who promised to help.08:51 – The checkpoint was almost empty. Asnat talked to the commander who refused to speed up the check of the young man. He then received a phone call from someone who enquired about the young man and told him it was forbidden to detain sick people. He said he hasn’t heard of such a regulation and wouldn’t release the detainees till the check was complete.09:00 – A major arrived and the young man was released.Huwwara South09:24 – A young man who said he lived in Nablus was told to contact one of his parents to come and collect him09:45 -10:05 – We saw the unannounced checkpoint at the entrance to Huwwara.10:11-11:45 – We waited at the checkpoint at Tapuah junction. When we asked the officer why the pace was so slow, he told us he didn’t owe us an explanation. We saw the dog trainers’ unit in action, the dogs sniffing around people taken off cars, taxis and buses for another check. Their bags were thrown on the muddy road and the dogs sniffed at them and jumped on them.While we were standing there we saw the young man en route to the MRI. He had been detained again here. We approached the commander, apparently a reservist, but he ignored us. We again contacted the "humanitarian" hotline and he was released within minutes. At this stage he was too weak to come down from the detainees' area and stumbled again and again. A soldier helped him and gave him something to drink. In the end the soldier put him on an ambulance and we could only hope that he would reach hospital safely.