Jubara

JUBARA. Sunday 12 December 2004 PM Observers: Raya Y., Yehudit B., Noa P., Chen (a new watcher), Naomi L. (reporting) colour=red>We stopped at the Jubara checkpoint for a few minutes , but we could have spent our whole shift there. There were about 20 detainees crowded up to the yellow metal fence .[Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. There has also recently been a downward shift in the ages affected – now from 14 to 30 — but this can vary. 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.] A family with six small children: the mother had an Israeli ID card, the father a Palestinian document. . He showed an entry permit into Israel and was sent to [nearby] Irtah. She was permitted to go through with the children. He refused to separate the family. The representative of the District Coordinating Office (DCO) there said that those were the new instructions and that we should stop preventing him from carrying out his job [the DCO is the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] . Another person with a permit was sent to Irtah, and was also very angry. "They are playing with us", he said From the direction of the exit from Tulkarm there were dozens of people waiting in line. We were forbidden to enter Jubara. A bus with students and teachers was standing at the entrance to the village , the documents of all those on board were collected and the soldier ordered the driver of the vehicle to pull the bus over to the side-- we didn't know for how long, as we had to go to Beit Iba.