The Palestinian DCO returned to coordinate and we were left without work.

Place:

Etzion DCO

Tags:

Updates during Corona

Observers:

Shlomit Steinitz, Natanya Ginsburg

Dec-7-2020

Morning

The parking lot was very empty and there were very few people who came to the DCO. N.

N. said that there is now coordination with the PA and therefore most problems are being handled through those lines. It may be that we have outlived our usefulness there.

Only two people approached us and we gave them Sylvia’s details. One person said that he had been told that he was a ‘police prevention’ but he only knew of one traffic fine which has not yet passed the 90 days limit. He had already approached a lawyer but we gave him Sylvia’s details. Another who had a fine dating back some years

was given the telephone of the police department which deals in fines.

Also here in Nofim I met one of our Palestinian cleaning ladies who told me of her husband who cannot enter Israel so she also photographed the tag with Sylvia’s details and I told her to pass the details on to anyone who needs them. She had already approached a lawyer who had done nothing for her and as we always do, she was told to tell everyone to approach Sylvia with problems.

Why do we take the trouble to report in Corona times as well?

Because democracy’s watchdogs have fallen asleep on their own watch, so Israeli citizens have no idea what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories, especially now.

Day and night, Israeli soldiers (as the State’s emissaries) help extreme settler-colonists take the law into their own hands, unhampered. They do not stop even in days of a raging pandemic and do not hesitate to harm Palestinians – their bodies, property, and sources of livelihood.

Unceasing harassment of the weakened Palestinian population inflicts psychological harm as well. All – from babies through and including the elderly and the ill – are open prey to Jewish violence and terrorism which the settler-colonists are only too eager to exert.

We of MachsomWatch will not cease to report, certainly not now during these Corona times and under the threat of annexation, about the settlers’ increased rampages, those who hurry to set facts on the ground helped by the Israeli army.

Israel rules the West Bank, and by force of the Geneva Convention, article no. 27, it is committed to enforcing law and order there. The inhabitants of these Occupied Territories have the legal right “to decent treatment of their body and dignity, and should be especially protected against any act of violence”.

Ironically, this is not at all upheld.

Nor shall we cooperate with the commonplace ignoring of the Palestinian people’s suffering, and with the Israeli public’s indifference to it. We shall continue to follow up closely and report the goings-on in the West Bank, in its villages and encampments.

No one should be able to say ‘We knew nothing, we heard nothing’

Location Description

Etzion DCO

See all reports for this place

serves residents of Bethlehem and surrounding villages who need magnetic cards, work permits for Israel, permits for one-time entry for religious or health reasons, various police permits, etc.