Reihan, Shaked, Wed 29.9.10, Morning
Eight soldiers are aiming their weapons at the yellow gate on the side of the seamline zone.
Standing there are three high school students. One of the girls is having an attack of asthma and anxiety. She keeps falling and getting up over and over again. I appeal to the soldiers. One of them refuses to talk to me. The second one does agree but his friend tells him not to talk to us. One of the Palestinians says that he tried to explain the girls' condition to the soldiers and to translate for them the medical permit that she has in her hand. The document says that she suffers from breathing difficulties, and has recently been released from the hospital in Nablus. It says that she is not allowed to spend time in a closed air-conditioned place. The girl asked not to have to enter the inspection pavilion but the soldiers did not agree to her request. It is important to mention that until recently students of schools were not required to enter the pavilion. At any rate, her friends accompanied her. All of this was going on when they were on their way to school. I phoned the DCO and the woman soldier who answered said that they know what is happening and are taking care of the matter. I said that we will report to people outside the country. Within a quarter of an hour they let the student go through.
We met the driver, Y., who is 'prevented [from passage] for reasons of security', but recently he 'went through' the CP all right. He also has henhouses: one in Tura on the West Bank and the second in Umm Reihan in the seamline zone. That is where he lives. He manages both of them. According to him, the DCO notified him that during the next month, there will be difficulties for him again at the CP. A strange story. The delay at the CP will harm his livelihood as a driver as well as his income from the henhouses on both sides of the fence.
09:10 Reihan-Barta'a CP
A resident of El Judeida on the West Bank who owns a store in East Barta'a arrived with his two workers, residents of Snur on the West Bank. Today, they were not allowed to go through to the seamline zone even though they were allowed through before, both during Succoth and on the days of closure
. A taxi driver has a small Palestinian flag on the windshield at the front of the car. He told us that he was detained in the internal CP and the soldier told him to take off the flag. The driver told the soldier that he doesn't tell the soldier to do away with the Israeli flag. After that, he says, they detained him for two and a half hours.
10:15 We left the CP and on our way to Barta'a we met a man who told us about the troubles that beset Palestinians. The man has been married for more than twenty years to a woman from Messer, who has an Israeli ID. The man has a Palestinian ID and a permit saying that he is in a naturalization procedure and that he should not be banished from Israel. The man and his wife and their children live in the Israeli village of West Barta'a. His wife's sister, who is also an Israeli from Messer, and her children, live together with them. The sister is married to a Palestinian from Yaabed (West Bank) who for five years has not been able to get a permit to enter Israel. The children are listed on her ID and they have Israeli ID numbers. They are above the age of sixteen and asked to receive Israeli ID cards at the Ministry of the Interior in Hadera. The Ministry of the Interior refused to give them ID cards, even though they have Israeli numbers, get a children's allowance from the government, and have medical insurance, and so on. They do not have a Palestinian ID card either. Without an ID card they have no possibility of visiting their father, who, as noted, cannot visit them either.