Etzion DCO: Something bad is already happening

12.30-14.00

The women’s toilet is still locked. The men’s’ toilet is filthy…..there should be a name for more than filthy….and the smell would drive a self-respecting pig back in horror.

Most of our shift was spent with a father, a grandfather and a friend who were frantically trying to find their 12 year old son who had been arrested by the soldiers outside the school gates on the charge of throwing stones. The principal has phoned to tell them . We went with them from pillar to post …. Someone evidently from the army told them by phone that the boy would shortly be released (it might have been the security coordinator of Afrat where he works) but this is not sure.

But they did not know where he would be released…..if  at the police station up the hill to where we drove with them or at the parking lot of inside at the Shabak gate. They were frantically phoning and receiving phone calls. We just wondered what the boy was going through. If he were a settler he would probably be called a child. And of course a hue and cry would be made at the fact that no parent or relative accompanied him. But then he would never have been arrested even had he been throwing stones at settlers or attacking the children in Hebrew.

The father and a friend  tried to speak to the soldiers at the entrance to the  GSS but were not sure what answer they had been given. Shlomiet tried her luck and at first the two women soldiers screamed at her to go away. That she was in a closed army area.  When she said that it was her right to be there they changed their tune and said that it was for her own safety. When she said that she would see to her safety  herself they decided to ignore her.

This went on the entire time that we were there. Eventually a car came along which the father said belonged to the Palestinian Authority. We took his number and later when we phoned he said that the boy had been taken to the Bethlehem DCO and that he was home. He said that he was fine but we wondered how fine that could be. Some day we have to try to meet with the family after such a happening and hear from the lips of the  children what they go through when they are arrested. We wonder how this will affect him in the future and if it would not turn him eventually to attack the soldiers. And what about the father who for hours looked for his son and did not know in what state he would be returned to the family

A trader has a permit which is in affect for the next month but was returned at the checkpoint. He is security prevented. We gave him Sylvia’s details.

This also happened to another man. He is 36 years old and due to marry in the near future. His fiancée lives in Jerusalem. She has a blue ID but for some reason…. how strange….it does not appear on the computer. The story becomes even murkier because he was also told that he is security prevented by the GSS But when he went to find out what was happening he was told  that there was no problem but also that  he would not receive clearance. When he asked why,  he was told ,”One does not have to speak about this.” (his words) but I think it is clear to all of us what was being said to him.

I would quote Shakespeare and say that “Something evil this way comes” but the evil is  already here with us