Habla checkpoint: Crossing through holes in the fence for lack of choice

Habla (1393)

06:30 – Many people were crossing through openings in the fence and we saw many of them gathering near the nurseries on our way to the checkpoint. We saw many people crossing freely through the holes in the fence while we were waiting for the soldiers to arrive at 06:50. We even saw someone crossing riding an electric bicycle, undoubtedly he used it to return home with at the end of the work day.

A contractor from Bida complained that he was paying an Israeli “contractor” 2,700 NIS each day to receive a permit to cross into Israel, but today when he arrived at Kalandia he found that the contractor had not renewed his permit, despite the fact that he had paid him. He was forced to cross through a hole in the fence to go and try and settle the matter. He complained that he was not permitted to work as a contractor in Israel despite the fact that he had been doing so for dozens of years. He works for real estate developers in Petach Tikva and Bnei Brak and has people working under him.

At 06:55 the soldiers arrived. Those crossing through Habla gathered next to the middle gate because the gate at Habla was already broken down. A line was created and people crossed in an orderly fashion.

A. from the first nursery near the road crossed and happily declared that the soldiers were behaving decently. A lot of people crossed and it appeared that there were many more people without certificates, or that they simply preferred not to show them.

The soldiers sent three people back without permits. The computer showed that they had permits, but had not brought them.

The gate was closed at 07:30.

Why do we take the trouble to report in Corona times as well?

Because democracy’s watchdogs have fallen asleep on their own watch, so Israeli citizens have no idea what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories, especially now.

Day and night, Israeli soldiers (as the State’s emissaries) help extreme settler-colonists take the law into their own hands, unhampered. They do not stop even in days of a raging pandemic and do not hesitate to harm Palestinians – their bodies, property, and sources of livelihood.

Unceasing harassment of the weakened Palestinian population inflicts psychological harm as well. All – from babies through and including the elderly and the ill – are open prey to Jewish violence and terrorism which the settler-colonists are only too eager to exert.

We of MachsomWatch will not cease to report, certainly not now during these Corona times and under the threat of annexation, about the settlers’ increased rampages, those who hurry to set facts on the ground helped by the Israeli army.

Israel rules the West Bank, and by force of the Geneva Convention, article no. 27, it is committed to enforcing law and order there. The inhabitants of these Occupied Territories have the legal right “to decent treatment of their body and dignity, and should be especially protected against any act of violence”.

Ironically, this is not at all upheld.

Nor shall we cooperate with the commonplace ignoring of the Palestinian people’s suffering, and with the Israeli public’s indifference to it. We shall continue to follow up closely and report the goings-on in the West Bank, in its villages and encampments.

No one should be able to say ‘We knew nothing, we heard nothing’