Huwwara North & South

HUWWARA SOUTH & NORTH, Sunday 19 December 2004 AMObservers: Sharon V., Shekky M., Ditza Y. (reporting) colour=red>07:50 – There was an unannounced road-block at Jit junction where some 15 trucks were awaiting checking. 08:00 – Huwwara South A large number of soldiers stood around the checkpoint: there were only a few Palestinians going rapidly through, and absolutely no detainees. 08:15 – Huwwara North Only a few Palestinians stood waiting to be checked, and then they, too, went through rapidly. There was also a relatively large number of soldiers on hand, too. There was just one woman detainee, who, according to the commander, was a “potential terrorist”. She was a teacher and said she'd been there for an hour. The soldiers said – 10 minutes. [Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. Also recently, there has been some lowering of the age of those regarded as suspect. 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]. At the checking stations, we saw little flags of the Haifa group of Women in Blue and White, inscribed “To the army with love” [this is a Likud-front group set up to counter Machsomwatch and demonstrate support for the army at the checkpoints].08:40 – The detainee’s telephone was taken from her for checking. The commander said: "She claims to be a teacher. I say she’s a teacher of terrorism."08:50 – The detainee was released. Two settlers, a man and a woman in a car, halted beside the checkpoint and shouted at us: "Garbage! Garbage! " and some other compliments.An ambulance was detained for checking and allowed to continue after 5-10 minutes.09:00 – We left.09:10 – Beit Furik Only sparse traffic here.