Morning

A.Ch., Y. A.10:00, Yizhar junction2 soldiers on duty, 3 on food break5-10 cars waiting on the northern side, according to one of the drivers, they have been waiting close to 2 hours.Similar situation for those coming from the south.An ambulance with 2 patients kept waiting 20 minutes already, the soldier says that he doesn't owe us any explanation.An army jeep, stopped at the junction for a few minutes with 2 soldiers inside (relatively human). It turns out that they also have some authority; we talked with them and, after their intervention, the local soldier allowed the vehicle (ambulance) + the patient + the driver to pass through. But the nurse/doctor on the ambulance crew was not allowed to pass. According to the soldier: because of his "suspicious appearance" his papers had been taken, the case was being checked. We tried to hurry up the process...11:00, Hawara SouthA line of not more than 20 people is waiting. It progresses at a reasonable speed, also the behavior of the soldiers (the unbearable reasonableness)11:20 Hawara SouthA moderate line, reasonable progress, nothing exceptional. A soldier is fixing the roof. When he finishes, he calls to those waiting to come into the shade. Three young men who were detained are sitting on the side; from time to time the "reasonable" soldier who is checking documents goes over to them deliberately and waves his gun at them. According to the soldier, they were pushing in line and thus endangered the soldiers.12:30 Return to Yizhar junctionThe state of the line is the same; within the thornbushes at the side of the road they erected a small tent for three women soldiers. Every woman who goes through the machsom by foot or car is taken to the tent, hands over her documents to one of the woman soldiers, another soldier does a body search in the tent (it is hard to watch the women separated from the others, sometimes not young at all, in traditional dress, and having to go over the fence within the thornbushes and be exposed to the women soldiers.13:30 On road 60, on the way that ascends in the direction of TzurNear the junction, a number of taxi drivers tell us about a difficult machsom on the way; the drivers complained about the unbearable ease with which the police make reports against them. According to them, it is the responsibility of the Authority to organize the transportation routes for the drivers, but in the end the taxi drivers are put in an impossible position of always disobeying the law. One of the drivers showed us a pile of police reports, all from the recent period, to a sum of 3500 NIS.We got to the checkpoints near Saara. The soldiers tried to prevent us from being there on the excuse of a closed military zone. We insisted on seeing the official permit; after 20 minutes, the senior rank arrived and had to admit that there wasn't any.There were about 30 people there in every direction, the line moved very slowly. Our presence seemed to improve a situation a bit. Anyway, the people were very thankful.14:30 JabaraIn all our 8 month's presence here, we never saw such an optimistic atmosphere. The starvation system and the prevention of humanitarian assistance served the transfer policy well. For the inhabitants of the "cages" there was no choice other that taking the temporary permits from the Matak. 70% received a permit good for one year. 30% got permits for 3 months, which might deprive them of their right to their own homes.