Bethlehem

On Monday (July 14th) at approximately
10.00 AM, Z. (a Palestinian) called to say that a young man is
being held inside the metal box in the checkpoint since 6AM, and
that he, Z., with over 30 other men are detained at the since 5.30
AM, for travelling without permits. After many phone calls and
hours of waiting for the right person to come, the detainee was
released from the box at approximately 12.00 PM. However, the other
30 men were held, in the sun, until 1.30 PM.

Etzion, 7.15. At the fence and behind it were approximately 70 men,
enraged and exhausted. Their IDs had been confiscated earlier, some
as early as 5 AM. Most had come on the Halhul-Al-Khadr bus, the
minority were caught trying to bypass through the forest. Before,
passengers without permits were sent back following an ID check,
now their IDs are confiscated and they are made to wait under the
sun for hours and hours. "As far as I am concerned," one
soldier explained, "whatever is to the south of this
checkpoint is the Territories, and to its north is Israel".
This in an internal checkpoint on the intersection between two
Palestinian districts! Some of the detainees' stories: One was
beaten by a soldier in the forest earlier that morning, another is
a resident of Jordan who was denied "family
reunification" with his wife and kids (currently living in a
village near Hebron), a third has been staying at home (unemployed)
for five months and this is his first attempt to search for work
since, a fourth a stone-cutter near Bethlehem, who hasn't been able
to reach his workplace for over a week ("each day of work, is
offset by six days spent at the checkpoint"), a fifth
deploring the devastating situation of all labourers in his village
("we spend on bus fares more than we earn from work, because
we never get to our workplaces"). At 8 AM the sun is high in
the sky and not a single shady spot near the fence. Suddenly, ten
of the labourers start walking towards the forest. A soldier chases
them with pointed rifle. We chase the soldier. The aborted
mini-rebellion collapses into a heated verbal exchange. Soldier
screams: "Are you out of your minds?", one laborer shouts
back: "I am ready to keep walking, even if you shoot me. Shame
on you. Another joins: "This is your government's deliberate
plan to drive us all crazy, step by step". And a third one
adds: "We are heading to Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, we don't
want Jerusalem, the hell with Jerusalem..." Soldier finally
retreats to compound.