Nablus
Watchers: A.C. ,E. M. D.
B.
Summary: A gate with three opening times at Mes'cha.
The check-point at Za'atara has been removed. Long,
slow-moving lines at Huwarrah (both sides), rude,
violent soldiers, pointing their rifles threateningly
at the Palestinians and losing their cool. A new
officer from the Matak who was helpful.
I had heard that there was now a checkpoint at
Mes'cha, and so we went to check and found the report
true. There are two gates on the road to the village
forming part of "separation wall". The gates are
open
three times a day: from 06.45 to 07.15, from 12.45 to
13.15, and from 16.45 to 17.15. When we got there,
the
gates were open and the soldiers! were not checking
or
in any way interfering with people passing through.
Alongside the gates a sort of market had developed,
with people buying and selling mattresses and other
items in the half hour that the gates are open. If
something happens at night, then the gates are not
opened. I think it's worthwhilestopping off , on the
way to or from Hawarrah, to see what's going on here.
The watch started off well-- the checkpoint at
Za'atara (Tapuah) had been removed. How great it was
to see the cement blocks standing there to no purpose
and the whole area apparently quite quiet ;every now
and then a vehicle or some people on foot came past,
and looked around as if they could not believe their
eyes.….
But at Huwarrah, there was quite a different story,
the place was popping with life (if one can use such
an expression about what goes on there!). At the
southern end, quite a long line for a Wednesday; not
that there were so many ! people, but rather because
the
six soldiers there were checking so extremely slowly.
The boys with the carts wanted us to ask the soldiers
to let them through, and of course the soldiers
refused . There were six of the lads waiting , and
not one was allowed through. Some 10 men had been
detained there since 8 o'clock in the morning. When I
approached one of the soldiers on their behalf, he
shouted at me that he would leave them there as long
as chose, even all night! He was not checking their
documents, he was quite deliberately simply detaining
them on purpose. To take one example: a student from
Nablus with a student card: "He comes here every
day,
"the soldier said. "Let him learn to get a
permit"
"And if he doesn't get one?" "Then let him not
come
here again!". All in all, the soldiers were very
rude
and insulting. I tried to phone Bissan and got
someone else in quite another sector, so he said.
Eventually, the Matak put me on! their man, Amit, at
the northern checkpoint.
But in the meantime a cart owner at the southern end
had refused to leave the checkpoint and there was a
confrontation between him and the soldiers who were
threatening "we'll break your arms and legs for
you
if you don't move off!" But he refused to budge
until
they returned his cart, which they had confiscated.
It was just terrible to see four soldiers screaming
at him and threatening him and the lad, all the
while,
standing there and insisting "I want my cart back!".
I
stood close to them and have no doubt that but for
our presence there they would have beaten him up,
and,
as it was, it was clear that they were finding it
very difficult to control themselves. And what was
his crime? He wanted to cross the checkpoint! I
promised him that I would try to talk to Amit and
since there several other instances of carts being
detained, and the like, we asked him to come over to
the sou! thern checkpoint. Within 10 minutes of his
arrival, all the carts that had been held up went
through, all those men who had been detained since
the morning were freed and we saw him intervene in
quite a few cases were people had been refused
passage
or detained. But there was no way that the lad whose
cart had been impounded could get it back! Still, he
did manage to extract a promise from one of the
soldiers who undertook to be there the next day and
return it to him then. We reported the "deal" to
Amit
and we shall follow it up with a phone call
Hawarrah north: as with the southern end, the
soldiers
here were rude, shouted all the time and were
insulting. The very narrow passage there had been
made even narrower with coils of wire so that those
coming through had to slither along the steep
slope, something that was especially difficult for
women and the elderly. They had completely closed off
the road to the passage of pedestrians . It was very
crowded and every now and then the soldiers would
lose
grip in the face of the mass of people opposite them
, rush at them threateningly with their weapons,
screaming hysterically and shouting like madmen.
Amit,
by now back at the northern end, was the only one to
keep his cool and talk like a human being. He
didn't always get his way and from time to time even
he got edgy. But he never shouted like the soldiers
did.
There was one incident in which a man wished to cross
with his six-year-old son in his arms. The child was
obviously very sick, his head was lolling backwards,
he was very pale and seemed about to faint. They had
no permit and the soldier sent them back. Our
intervention did not help. "They all say they're
sick!" the soldier said. "This kid will blow
himself
up in Tel Aviv tomorrow and what will you say
then!"
The father pulled back the child's clothing to show a
huge surgical scar on his stomach, covered by a giant
plaster. It was just awful to see the father begging
the soldier, who continued to say "no!". A
few
minutes after we moved away, he let father and child
through! How bitter it was to see this!
At one point, when Edna approached an officer, he
screamed at her: "Shut your mouth and get the hell
out
of my sight!" -- a good example of how the
behaviour
practised in relation to the Palestinians has its
effect on behaviour towards Israelis too. And we can
assume that it will just as easily cross over the
green line, too. One of the terrible things at the
checkpoint (both ends) now is that at least two, and
sometimes more, soldiers stand all the time pointing
their rifles at the waiting crowd. Our requests that
they not do this went unanswered or else elicited the
answer that they were only pointing at the
barricades. One of the soldiers even insisted on
squinting down his telescopic lens at the people in
! the crowd. There are women, children and elderly
people here and this is an especially fearful and
humiliating sight.