'Azzun, Huwwara

Everything is quiet. All the stores are open and it seems that life continues as usual, even masks are not needed, except at the DCO offices.

We started at Azzun where all the shops have been shut a week ago but now everything is open and it seems that life continues as usual, the roads are not busy but there is some traffic.

The Huwwara DCO

We began at the shed which is situated next to the entrance, near the parking lot. There is a coffee vendor there, who closed his motorized shack when we left at around one thirty. There were still a number of men, sitting and gossiping, most of which were probably taxi drivers, partly yellow cars and other vehicles, probably serving them for unofficial transportation. After an exchange of opinions with them and  a photograph, by them, of the Sylvia company phones ( which we have on the badge that we have hanging from our neck) and after we explained that we might perhaps help them, we gave some of them the phone numbers of Kav La-Oved (The Phone Line for Workers) which they need, because of the holding-back of wages by Israeli employers.

At this stage we decided to try and enter the offices. We passed at the turnstiles like the locals, there was no queue but we were allowed to enter. There is an empty hall there with many chairs, which leads to another hall where there are a kind of easy chairs where people were sitting and waiting. All of them sat separated one from the other and with masks, this is the requirement there. We talked with some and asked for the reason of their being there. There was one who needed a permit to enter Israel for medical reasons, to the Mukassed hospital. Another required a renewal of his work permit in Israel, another was a merchant who had bought goods and still had no permit to enter them, and now the validity of the use of the goods had expired, or something like this.

At some stage we approached the clerk who was sitting behind a window of thick glass and asked her for the phone numbers of the different DCOs, a thing which Tzvia had asked us to find out, and she gave the information willingly, and we also had a small conversation with her – there was no pressure. In the end we managed to have a conversation with the local cleaner who knows everything about everybody and the place. We had met him already at our previous visit there, a few weeks ago. He has been working here for eight years already, and is satisfied.