'Anata, Container (Wadi Nar), Ras Abu Sbitan (Olive Terminal), Thu 25.10.07, Morning

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Yehudit S., Michaela R., Shira V. (reporting)
25/10/2007
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בוקר
05:45 Zeitim passage - the palestinian side

Three sleeves areopen, there is no external line, but the three sleeves are full with people. We started to take photographs, as usual. A policeman named G. and asked us to stop photographing. We asked him to show us where it says that photographing is prohibited. At this stage two civil guard arrived (their Hebrew was lame), their attitude hostile, and a short unpleasant talk developed. In the meanwhile a BP man arrived along with a Palestinian from inside the checkpoint and asked us whether we spoke with him. As we answered "no", the Palestinian said that this is what he had told him - that he had not spoken with us, and then the BP man let him go and the Palestinian returned to the checkpoint.

We took another photograph, and then two civil guards arrived. From the pillbox one could hear on the loudspeakers "it is forbidden to take photographs", and on the communication system we heard "drop their camerainfo-icon to the floor and crash it".

06:15

 We approached the carousel area, and the soldiers asked us in English to go away. When we asked "why" (in Hebrew) they answered "that's why". When we asked again "why?" they said "because the commander wants you to". Since one of us missed her ID we had to go away and left the place in order not to get in trouble with the security forces there.

06:37 Wadi Naar

Traffic is scarce, the open to both directions. We did not see any dealys, and there was no checkup - they just signalled to all vehicles to go thorugh. A taxi that arrived from the west and wanted to turn left was demanded to make a huge u-turn from the south since the soldiers at the checkpoint did not let it turn left at the place.

07:18 Anata - M.P. Sho'afat checkpoint



There are hundreds of children at the square, where they have transportation to various schools in the eastern city. There is chaos, but under control. An older person (in his thirties) is there to take care of things, and make some order. He approached us and introduced himself as Zandoc El-Jamil (we think that this is the name of a charity fund), and that he is the head of the neighborhood committee. He claimed that about 3000 children are school bussed from there every day. He also said that Ir-Yamim (a) joins them in this project. 
The checkpoint itself was auiet. The traffic of pedestrians in the checkpoint was flowing. The elderly were hardly checked. The children were not checked at all, and did not have to go through the carousel (despite the fact that all the children were sent to go through the checkpoint, a group of children that went forwards on the southern sidewalk were sent by the soldiers there to go through the checkpoint on the northern sidewalk). At the checkpoint there were civil guards and BP men.

07:45

We returned to the square with the children. We saw two BP men who stood a bit to the east of the noisy square. Suddenly, a BP Jeep arrived, and another. Some soldiers with a BP officer descended the Jeep, entered into one of the busses full of boys, and picked out three  boys who were put into one of the Jeeps. What we understood is, that they claimed that those boys threw stones at the soldiers.
The man with whom we spoke before told us that there was one child who had thrown a stone, but he took care of him immediately.
Later on, when the boys were waiting in the Jeep untill he drove away with them, he said that there was nothing. He said that everyday there are accusations like this.
The BP officer (Mirza) with whom we spoke later on said that those happennings are very rare, and the three boys threw stones on the BP men, and then went into the bus. He claimed that they took the boys to the nearet police station, they will enquire them and release them immediately (the registration number of the Jeep 22274). 
None of us saw stones being thrown.

08:00

The whole incident was ended. The noise of children stopped, and the square was empty. The man who took care of the place was gone in his vehicle.