Jubara

13:30-16:00.

Watchers: G.G., T.P., H.A., E.Ts.

A holiday today, Eid al-Fitr. The weather is beautiful. Men with
their wives and children all dressed up in their best clothes, come
to pass through the checkpoint to visit family. According to the
tradition, the men of the family pay visits to the women, fathers
and sons visit daughters and sisters, and then everybody visits
everybody else.

The holiday atmosphere is in the air. But they have to stand there,
in that same exhausting queue. They have to wait for the soldier
who’ll allow them to go through or tell them, “Irja!” [Go back.]
Today, people’s expressions are more festive than usual, more
pacified – until they encounter the soldier who checks their
details in basic Arabic: age, where from, where to?

Of all the destinations, Jubara is the only one that it’s forbidden
to enter; it’s Israeli territory. Anyone intending to go to Jubara
to visit family there is given a perplexed look: Like, what don’t
you understand? – Jubara is Israel! Without a permit, there’s no
entry.

We try to intervene. But the soldiers put it this way: They don’t
decide anything. They act only according to the instructions, and
the instructions are very clear: Jubara is Israel, and to go there
you need a “tasrikh” [permit]. And actually, the soldiers on this
shift were pretty reasonable: hard-liners, but polite in their way.

When we arrived, there was a relatively large group of people, and
only one soldier was checking documents. That’s too understaffed.
The queue was progressing very slowly.

We spoke with the commander of the checkpoint, Sgt. Aviv, so that
he’d post another soldier in order to speed up the queue a little.
He tells us that there’s no possibility. “If I had soldiers,
believe me, I’d post one -- no problem.”

We pick up the phone and call Absha, the IDF Spokesman’s
representative for this battalion. We have to leave a message on
his answering machine. Right away, after several minutes, his
response comes: now there are two or three soldiers doing the
checking.

A young man who lives in the village of Kafr Jammal [Jammala] comes
to the checkpoint. He has land east of Kochav Ya’ir, on the western
side of the separation fence – Falamya, what’s called “Gate No.
22.” His elderly father has difficulty working the land and the son
wants to help. His brothers are youngsters; his fifteen-year-old
sister is a schoolgirl. His brothers and the sister all have
permits to go once a week to help, but they don’t have time because
they’re all in school. This young man has the time, but no permit.
He has a criminal record, he says, “But a criminal record isn’t a
security-offense record.”

The DCO liaison officer, Rami Bareket, is the one in charge of the
authorizations. “Go speak with him, tell him I’m the only one who
can help our father.” On the days his sister with the permit goes
to the checkpoint, by the time she gets there, usually the gate is
closed. Opening the gate always depends on the will of the soldier:
if he shows up, it’s opened; if he doesn’t, it isn’t. Sometimes the
gate is opened only at eight o’clock in the evening.

A resident of Nazlat-‘Isa, a man about 50 years old, wants to get
to Hawara to visit his daughters. With him are his brother and the
brother’s son. They have an authorized pass, but not for the car.

Speaking excellent Hebrew, he tells us that he’s already gone
through five checkpoints since setting out early this morning. Now
it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. The soldier tells him, “Without
a permit, it’s not possible. Leave the car here.”

The man explains that he’s only going for an hour to say hello and
then return. “Nothing doing,” the soldier says, “Go on foot.”

“But why? It’s a holiday. The whole day’s gone.” We intervene; ask
him to check again. We speak with Sergei, another sergeant --
according to him, the most senior one at this checkpoint. His
response is affirmative; the men go through, worn out but
satisfied.

Toward the conclusion of the shift comes a young woman – six months
pregnant, carrying an enormous bag of clothing. She speaks Hebrew
fluently. She lives in the Jordan Valley now; she used to live in
Qalqiliya. Her two uncles were killed in the first Intifada.

She’s on her way to visit her grandmother who lives in Tira. Her
family hasn’t seen the grandmother in over two years because of all
the checkpoints and the difficulties along the way.

The commander of the checkpoint decisively refuses to let her
through. She explains that her brother dropped her off and drove
away already and she has no way to get back home.

After a lot of attempts at persuasion, and undergoing a thorough
search of what she’s carrying with her, she’s allowed by the
sergeant to cross.

We took her with us to Tira.

“Eid sa’id” – Happy holiday.