A return visit to the checkpoint that does not exist | Machsomwatch
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A return visit to the checkpoint that does not exist

A return visit to the checkpoint that does not exist

source: 
UN-TRUTH
author: 
Marian Houk

Two months after the Israeli Defense Forces announced at the beginning of June that it was removing the Atara checkpoint, north of Ramallah, it was still there today.

I went with a team of three Israeli women from Machsom Watch [or "Checkpoint Watch" - women against the occupation and for human rights], to see for myself.

Atara - Bir Zeit checkpoint north of Ramallah in the West Bank - June 2009

Young Israeli soldiers sweltering in the heat were in the watchtower. Others were on the ground inside a compound formed of concrete blocks, where a generator was making some noise.

When they saw the Machsom Watch women, the soldiers in the watchtower shouted: “Oh, it’s those people from Peace Now [another Israeli anti-occupation group], they’re back again!”

The soldiers shouted down to the women that they knew they were responsible for an article about them was published last Wednesday on the Israel website Walla — and they shouted that they had no intention to give the women another story this week.

They threatened to lodge a complaint against one of the Machsom Watch ladies who was taking pictures, because, they said, she was taking pictures of a “military installation”.

Then, someone shouted down through a loudspeaker that it was a closed military zone — one through which there just happened to be a steady stream of Palestinian civilian road traffic — and ordered the Machsom Watch ladies to leave.

The Machsom Watch team leader laughed it off, saying that the soldiers had to show a written order, which they did not do.

The soldiers then said they were calling their commander, one stood in the watchtower window with a phone at his ear. One soldier came out of the gate and took our pictures.

The soldiers were completely preoccupied with the presence of the Machsom Watch team and paid no attention whatsoever to the passing Palestinians.

The story published last week in Walla was also covered on this blog here.

Now, MachsomWatch has released a video, with a photo montage of the earlier moments, and footage of the final confrontation and then, at last, after the sun had set, the release of the mini-bus driver, five hours after the bus and its passengers were detained at this checkpoint-that-does-not exist.