Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah), Mon 15.9.08, Morning

Translation: Hanna K.

Do you see civilians here?

Za'tara 06:30 –
There is a little traffic coming from Huwwara. A 17 year old man arrives without IDs and he is not allowed to continue on this way.

Beit Furik
07:15 – there are few people and cars who pass at the CP. The soldiers facilitate the passage because of the Ramadan, the Palestinians tell us. The café doesn't function for the same reason, but despite this, when we arrive, a commotion arise around us.
A man from Beit Furik whose details we have, tells us that on the 8.9, at two o'clock after midnight, soldiers entered his brother's house at Beit Furik and took his brother son, a lad of 19. Till today they haven't heard of him and they don't know where he is kept. We took the details and passed them on to Hanna B. for clarification. The family has two grown up sons and a small daughter. The young detainee is a graduate of high school and intends studying at the university. He has no connection to any organization.
We asked a taxi driver whom we know from the café whether he had ever been in an Israeli prison. He told us that he was "only" 8 days detained in Huwwara. How did this happen? Simply, one day at the CP they detained him, took his ID, handcuffed him, put a flannelette on his eye, ordered a jeep and ….to prison.
 There he was kept for 8 days with other detainees, 8 people in a small room, without windows, without a toilet, the food they got was a mixture of everything the soldiers left behind. Nobody interrogated him during all this time. After 8 days he was released, just as he was imprisoned.

Huwwara
08:00 – The Ramadan can be felt at the parking lot. Less cars. The air is devoid of the smell of bakeries and fried food. A stall of wrapped sweets waits for buyers.
At the CP all is as usual. Routine activity. And as usual the CP commander arrives to tell us to retreat to the blue line.
The commander : I ask you to go beyond the line
Z. : Why
The commander : this is military zone and this is an order
Z. :As long as there are civilians here we have the right to be here too.
The commander : Do you see civilians here?
And then begins a lecture of five minutes about the history of the occupation and about human rights at the end of which the commander admits, I am nothing but a small screw in the system.
No further word was uttered regarding a line, white, blue or red.