Checkpoint Harassment
By Trond K. Botnen, Norway
Palestinians are suffering daily harassment at checkpoints. It takes hours to get to work – and the waiting can be deadly if you are in need of immediate medical attention.
- Do you love Israel? The soldier in the ID control booth asks this to a Palestinian man in the line waiting to go to work in Israel. After having received a barely audible “yes” the man is given back his papers and allowed to pass.
This is just one example of harassment at the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, where between two and three thousand Palestinian workers pass every morning between 5am and 8am. Three days a week for three months we have been present to observe and document harassment, and to try to help people who get into trouble.
A humiliation machine
The first workers arrive at 2am and try to sleep while waiting in line until the entrance gate is supposed to open at 5am, something we have never experienced it actually doing. When it finally opens, the Palestinians are allowed to pass through the entrance gate after showing IDs and work permits. There is then a new line in front of the metal detectors, and finally a third line before the final ID control. In each of these three places, many soldiers do their utmost to humiliate and harass the workers.
Early one morning when we arrive several hundred workers are queuing as usual. While they are waiting, a coke bottle comes flying through the air and hits the fence the Palestinians are waiting behind. Upon closer inspection the contents are found to be yellow, not black – the bottle is half-full of urine. It was only luck that prevented the bottle from opening upon impact and the waiting Palestinians splashed by its contents. Another day we saw about a dozen Palestinians detained in a fenced-in area, with no access to shade and water in the scorching sun.
Women, children and sick people targeted.
Soldiers – both men and women – seem to select certain groups of people for harassment. Body searches of women seem very popular, perhaps because they know that this is particularly humiliating in Arab culture? Many children are refused entry if they do not have a birth certificate proving they are below 16, or if their parents do not have a special permit to accompany them. The problem is the same if someone needs to go to hospital, many are unable to get there due to the excessive demands for documentation and special permits. We are able to help some pass through, but far from all.
A Palestinian friend of mine told me that Sunday morning just a couple of weeks ago his brother-in-law suffered a heart attack and a brain stroke. His heart was restarted by electroshock and he was taken in an ambulance to go to an Israeli hospital. They were not allowed through the checkpoint, and had to book an Israeli ambulance to take the man from the Israeli side of the checkpoint to the hospital. When it arrived, the Israeli doctor refused to move the man between the ambulances due to his critical condition. After more than half an hour of negotiations the soldiers agreed that the Israeli ambulance could escort the Palestinian ambulance to the hospital and back to the checkpoint. The man survived, but he is still in a coma and may suffer brain damage due to the delay at the checkpoint. Such delays are the rule more than the exception.
