Beit Furik, Huwwara, Za'tara (Tapuah), Tue 27.11.07, Morning

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Irit (guest) Edna C. and Yael P. (reporting)
27/11/2007
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בוקר

Translation: Hanna K.

It needs to be stressed in advance - the tour in which Edna participated is not a standard one. We did indeed visits CPs but the main part of the shift took place between them, with conversations with locals in the parking lots, in the café, in the village etc.


At Huwwara we met two women and their children, they told us that their husbands are Jordanians and without rights, and moreover there is a real problem at the moment - one of the children is hard of hearing and is not treated properly (although she paid 400 IS which most be an enormous sum for her).Edna took all the possible details and promised to try and assist with the help of Doctors for Human Rights.

Somewhere else we talked (mainly Edna, of course, with  her fluent Arabic) with a group of men. A kind of small talk - they told us that the quiet at the CPs today is a result of the Anapolis conference in the background. They personally are of the opinion that it is necessary to compromise - they won't get more than the 67 frontiers, so one has to "go ahead with this".

At the beginning of the day at Za'tara (Tapuach) there was a long and slow queue from the south. A taxi driver and his passengers are detained and their papers taken.
Each bus that arrives is stopped and its passengers are made to alight for control. It turned out that the taxi was stopped as a "punishment" because the driver didn't obey the instructions of the CP commander and tried to outsmart him. After a short clarification talk the CP commander agreed to return the papers to the passengers "but not to the driver, they are not guilty, let them go". In the meantime a commander with the rank of lieutenant colonel arrived, after a few smooth words Edna succeeded to convince him that a punishment was not in place and an order was issued to release the driver (in the meantime he also ordered to speed the passage up, and indeed the long queue that was when we arrived miraculously became short). We then continued to talk with him a quite futile conversation - one shouldn't punish but it is also impossible to let them creat havoc. If a driver bypasses the queue this harms the Palestinians. To all our words, to the effect that it's not Zahal's business to deal with the education of the Palestinians but to see to the safety and security of the state of Israel

the reply always was "yes, but one cannot allow..."

At Huwwara village we chanced upon a border police jeep. They stopped some van and demanded that he remove his license plate.

We left after the lad expressed his full belief that the event would end without violence.
 

At Burin there is not CP in any direction.

At Huwwara - all is quiet, very quiet. A coffee stand and a beigel stand are active without disturbance.
At the CP the soldiers are calm and only few people coming and going. A young lad sits without handcuffs in the detention cell. (when we returned after some time he wasn't there any more).

Beit Furik - the soldiers are really bored, we held a long conversation with them near the booth (no white line was mention today!) they are very militant, are sure that here they defend the country but that one has to treat people fairly (except one military policewoman who was prepared to hit each one of us and every living Palestinian).

All in all an interesting shift. The CPs are quiet and without special events, a fact which enabled us "by means of" Edna to get to know today a little the people whom we always only see passing at the CPs.