Etzion DCO: Few people come but the problems are not over

Place:

Etzion DCO

Tags:

Updates during Corona

Observers:

Shlomit Steinitz, Netanya Ginzburg (reports)

May-11-2021

Morning

11.00 - 12.00

Very few cars were parked in the parking lot and the waiting room was empty. A number of people came and went straight through to the offices. We met a Christian family, who came out smiling from the offices and pleased to tell us that they had received a permit to enter Israel. A woman arrived with a package of documents, with which she hoped to prove ownership of the family's land. We exchanged a few words with her. Two people, who are not allowed to enter Israel, shared the known problems. One of them spent a long time in prison. We referred them to Sylvia.

Nadav, the coordinator of government activities in the Territories, and who helped us a lot in contacts with the Palestinians, leaves his post in the D.C.O after a year and a half. He came out to say goodbye and brought his replacement, Assaf, to meet us. Assaf looks very young and also a pleasant person, and we hope to have the same excellent relationship as we had with Nadav.

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’

Location Description

Etzion DCO

See all reports for this place

serves residents of Bethlehem and surrounding villages who need magnetic cards, work permits for Israel, permits for one-time entry for religious or health reasons, various police permits, etc.