Etzion DCO: "For you, this is all entertainment!"

Two people have had their cars taken from them. The son of one of them had gone to buy him some pills when he was stopped by soldiers at the checkpoint at Takoa.  They checked the car over and over and found nothing. They kept him at the Etzion police station until three in the morning. The father has never been called in by the ISA although the son has. At three they freed the son but kept the car. The father says that a policeman, Jamil, told the son that if he bought another car, he would take it from him and also from his father or his brother. It sounded as if he (Jamil) had a vendetta against them.

Then something surrealistic happened. A vehicle stopped and three soldiers got out together with three handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinians, whom they brought into the hall.

One of them said, as he passed: "Look at my hands."  The soldiers sat them down in the hall but, unlike the last time, did not object to our being in the hall with them and other Palestinians going through to the offices. The soldiers said that they had been told by the ISA that the men were supporters of Hamas. One of the soldiers also told us that Machsom Watch representatives had spoken with his class when he was in his “Mechina” (prep school).  Shlomit responded by telling him that the service was so bad for them and that many soldiers came out of it with trauma, and he seemed to agree.

The man whose handcuffs were very tight…tighter than the others…asked for them to be loosened. He claimed that he had been kept that way since one in the morning. Wondering   why they were kept so long before being brought to the DCO at nearly noon, we asked why not loosen his handcuffs, and were told that they had done so before, but he then attacked them. This is one of those times when we did believe what we were told because of the soldiers’ polite behavior to us and also other Palestinians who were coming to the DCO.

It is not clear though why they were brought in through the hall and not taken through the side entrance....we have noticed that  the DCO’s operation is changing.  Settlers looking for cheap labor are now being dealt with on the stairs (the exit from the offices) and land problems are dealt with by someone in Hebron. Are they planning to shut down the DCO? What a waste of our tax money if this is so.

Another man told us that his car had been impounded as the result of an accident. They had taken a lawyer which cost them 2000 shekels. She had succeeded in having the car freed but it would still take a day or two. Then the man's brother had phoned her and called her a liar and accused her of taking too much money. Shlomit spoke with the lawyer who was very upset and said she had worked very hard to free the car. Shlomit persuaded the man to get his brother to phone the lawyer and apologize. We hope he did so.

I, Natanya, also had an unpleasant experience. A couple arrived at noon, and I went in to show them how to get through the turnstile. I did tell them that the soldiers were on a break and would only come back at one.  They had come about family unification.  The man spoke excellent English but, while I was trying to listen to his problem, his wife became very aggressive and motioned to him to leave, saying that I would not help them in any way. Then she turned to me and said, "To you this is all entertainment," I thought maybe her English was not so good and said that it was not entertainment and that we had been coming here to see what we could do for over 20 years. But she kept repeating herself and the man apologized but didn't try to shut her up. It was pointless trying to speak to him with her in the background, though I tried to give them the phone number of the organization which could help their case.

We were also asked for help from a man who had been breaking down a wall in area B and had been called in. He said that the settlers had come with soldiers claiming that he was in Area C.

 A is a Jordanian citizen and has an international driving license. Although he said he knows that it is forbidden for him, he was driving a car with an Israeli license, which he had bought in Israel where it was cheaper.  He’d never had a problem before till now. His wife and child were in the car, and this time was not so lucky. He went through the checkpoint as he wanted to make a turn and was stopped and told that he was trying to get into Israel. His car was confiscated and he had to wait on the road with his family and all his belongings until he could get a taxi to take them home.