Nablus

Hawara, 4.12.03

Booki, Menucha, Shelley

Along the way, we took a looks at the gate of the fence at Mascha.
We arrived at the opening hours of 12:45-13:15. The gate was indeed
open, the people who passed through were asked to show ID documents
and permits – also those who were going into the village (even
though it was raining). We asked the soldier if there were people
who were forbidden to go into the village, and he answered in the
negative, and he was only checking in order to find out how many
had succeeded in going out without a check. The gate closed at
13:25.

At the Za'atra junction there were also soldiers, and on the road
from the Nablus area in the direction of Ramallah there was a very
long line of cars and trucks. We intended to go back there later,
but, in the end, we were delayed at the checkpoint of Huwara for 4
hours, and by the time we returned to Za'atra there was no
line.

On the southern side of the Hawara checkpoint there were about 70
people waiting. They stood crowded together and got closer to the
soldiers all the time because of the rain. When we arrived, Amit
the officer from the Matak was also there. He passed people through
quite slowly, and he particularly refused to allow through
residents of Nablus without permits, and insisted that they need to
go to the Matak by way of Awarta and get a permit. We called Raad,
who said that residents of Nablus should be allowed to go home, and
that he would send someone to explain this to the soldiers. A
little later, a jeep arrived from the Matak. We did not see the
soldier who got out actually say anything to the soldiers, but
instead he took Amit with him and they went off.

The soldiers who remained started a new procedure: they allowed
almost everyone to go through, but every resident of Nablus who
arrived without a permit got a short lecture, emphasizing that it
is forbidden for him to leave Nablus without a permit. This
lengthened considerably the time of the checking, and the line got
longer too. In the end, the soldiers understood this, and after
they had tried very hard to get the line to move backward, they
began to check more quickly. This went on for about an hour, during
which time they delayed some people for checking their documents,
and then returned to dealing with the position of the line and
everything went slowly.

Meanwhile, it became clear that they were purposely holding back
two people who had been waiting in line: workers who are building
the hospital in Salfit and wanted to get back home to Nablus. After
a delay of about 2 ½ hours, and when there was no longer any answer
at Raad's office, which had previously promised to deal with the
matter, we called Ofer – a volunteer on the "seam". He
suggested we turn to the officer Shai on the northern side of
thecheckpoint. Shelley went to the northern side, where she saw a
Palestinian whose hands were tied behind his back, sitting on the
wet asphalt at the soldiers' booth. The soldier, Shai, said that
"he made a balagan (confusion)", tried ! to grab a
soldier's weapon, and that they would soon be arriving to take him
into custody, and that he had been sitting there for half an hour.
The Palestinian, Fadi, said that he had been there since 13:00 or
14:00 (it was around 17:00), and that he had not tried to grab any
weapon but rather to grab on to something when the soldiers pushed
him. I let him speak to Jumana at the Moked and she got the phone
number of his parent's neighbors so she could speak to
them.

Meanwhile, on the southern side of the checkpoint there were about
100 people waiting. When Shai arrived they were in fact passed
through quickly – except for one youth who was kept for 1 ¼ hours
to check his ID and the two who were waiting previously (we had
first seen them at about 14:00), Bassam and Alan; only after
everyone had passed through their documents were taken to be
checked. The soldier, Yanun, claimed that he had held them up
simply because he could do it. They were let go in the end and
passed through, as far as we knew, without any particular answer
about them having been communicated. We left at about 18:30. Also
Fadi, who had been tied up on the northern side, was no longer
there. Shai said that the commander had arrived, talked with Fadi
and let him go. Shelley couldn't contain herself and opened the hut
of the soldiers to see if he was there. It looked as though, in the
dark, there were only flak jackets and packages of sweets there.
Shai got angry, and said that all communication between us was
over…