New Israeli search method at West Bank checkpoint worries Palestinians

• Published 21:30 25.01.12
• Latest update 21:30 25.01.12

According to eyewitness reports, Israeli police officers have begun searching Palestinian vehicles at a Bethlehem checkpoint through use of nausea-inducing chemicals.

By Amira Hass

Israel Police have begun implementing a new method of searching Palestinian vehicles through use of nausea-inducing chemicals at a Bethlehem checkpoint, international aid workers have reported.

Since December, Israeli police officers have introduced what they call a sophisticated method of tracking explosive materials.

	Palestinian workers at the Bethlehem checkpoint.
	Photo by: Daniel Bar-On

Palestinians with Israeli license plates, usually residents of Jerusalem or foreign residents are allowed to pass through the checkpoint. Cars traveling to Jerusalem are often asked by Border Police soldiers to park their car in a side lot with eight parking spaces near the checkpoint. Once parked, the passengers are asked to roll up all windows, apart from that of the driver – and exit the vehicle. Two tubes are then connected to the vehicle – one is connected to an air pump, the other, which passes through a tiny filter, is attached to the vehicle. A policeman with a stopwatch flicks the air pump switch. (see the video: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/new-israeli-search-method-at-west-bank-checkpoint-worries-palestinians-1.409211)
 
According to Palestinians, police officers who carried out the search refused to describe the procedure. An official in the Israel Police told Haaretz that it is an approved procedure, and another police source said there is no use of any chemicals, but would not expand on the new search method.

A foreign resident who works at an international organization and must pass through the checkpoint several times a week told Haaretz that the tube is left connected for approximately 10 minutes. Afterward, the filter is removed and taken to a nearby building. The worker says she was under the impression that some kind of chemical was disseminated into the vehicle, as she and another passenger began feeling nauseous and suffered from headaches several days afterwards. The worker has informed her country’s embassy.

However, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, whose car also underwent the same procedure, told Haaretz that he did not feel a thing, and that the police officers added that it was “only oxygen” being pumped into the vehicle.

Israel Police officially responded to the inquiry by saying that “as the force entrusted to protect the country’s citizens and their quality of life, it must conduct arbitrary, rudimentary checks through use of sophisticated technological means, all the while alleviating the experience of those being checked.”

Approximately three months ago, the police used bomb-sniffing dogs at the checkpoint. One man who passes through the checkpoint regularly told Haaretz that the security forces have a tendency to switch methods.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/new-israeli-search-method-at-west-bank-checkpoint-worries-palestinians-1.409211

Report: Palestinian shot at checkpoint

Published today (updated) 22/01/2012 14:24

 

 

Israeli soldiers close Qalandiya checkpoint after protests
(MaanImages/Mushir Abdelrahman, File)

 

TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- A 29-year-old Palestinian man was shot after trying to attack a soldier at Qalandiya checkpoint Sunday near Ramallah, Israeli news reports said.

The Palestinian, who was not identified, sustained light injuries to the leg, Ynet news reported. He was transferred to hospital.

According to Israeli media, the man was carrying an axe and tried to attack a soldier at the checkpoint which separates northern Jerusalem from Ramallah.

Israeli police did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=454359

A Checkpoint Isn't Just a Construction

15:31 12/22/2011

A checkpoint is also there to mold consciousness and ideology. (Tamar Fleishman)

By Tamar Fleishman – The West Bank

Shuafat checkpoint that was inaugurated a few days ago disconnects the residents of the refugee camp from the center of their lives. It separates family members, employees from their place of work, patients from clinics, children from educational institutions and restricts the free movement of tens of thousands of human beings, for the ultimate goal set by its inventors and constructors to create a "strictly Jewish Jerusalem".

The architecture of the checkpoint correlates to the principles of modern prisons, the Panopticon, the concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched, according to Michel Foucault's definition:
"A metaphor for the modern disciplinary power which is based on isolation, individualization and supervision… the construction is divided into cells that provide the supervisors a clear view of the prisoners- so as to enable the creation of hierarchy and power. In this instance, the custodians (prison directors, wardens) are able to observe and control the space through different devises (closed-circuit televisions, patrols and so on) and they have control over and access to the entire site. In contrast, the prisoners' movement is restricted to a defined and narrow space, and their accessibility, as well as their ability to observe, is partial and limited according to the regulations of the administration".  

When entering this lion's den one is sure to lose his way in the concrete monster, adorned with the hidden eyes of countless cameras and the revealed eyes of the men in uniform, who are seated in a room separated by bullet proof glasses.

The walls of this construction are impenetrable to sun beams, the vast space is lighted artificially, which causes the person walking in the meandering labyrinth to feel uncertain whether he is located on ground level or under it. In this atmosphere, in which one can't tell if he is above or under, whether it is day or night, of estrangement and isolation from natural surroundings, and in which in each moment a side door might open and the person might disappear to god knows where, it's no wonder that there is a sense of distress and suffocation.

A protest was supposed to be held on the inauguration ceremony. But the long arm of the occupation was quicker than the protest leaders, and in the dead of night it visited tens of houses and only at morning was it known that thirty five men were arrested. In the absence of the protest leaders children and teenagers took their places. Some had their faces bear and other covered them for fear of the cameras above that immortalize every movement made in the open space, as well as the long sighted camera that was attached to the military jeep patrolling at the side of the protest. Years of experience have taught them that after the cameras come hunters that do not distinguish between children and adults, to them they are all prey that can be arrested and locked up.

The children protested and threw stones and in response a burst of rubber bullets was fired, after which a group of armed men with drawn riffles came out of the checkpoint and stood at the center of the main street. Once they finished notifying every one of their presence- they headed back.

By the new pillbox, on the road heading out of the checkpoint, like a memoranda is the soldier post which was the symbol of the old checkpoint. The old checkpoint wasn't more humane than the new one, but it gave a sense of impermanence, and with impermanence comes hope. Unlike the new one, the actual construction of the old one enabled a physical encounter between occupier and occupied, without the alienating sterility which is typical to the new checkpoints.

A checkpoint isn't just a construction implemented for blocking and imprisoning, its essence isn't architectural; it is also and perhaps mostly there to mold consciousness and ideology.

(Translated by Ruth Fleishman)

- As a member of Machsomwatch, once a week Tamar Fleishman heads out to document the checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah. This documentation (reports, photos and videos) can be found on the organization's site: www.machsomwatch.org. She is also a member of the Coalition of Women for Peace and volunteer in Breaking the Silence. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=17334

Shu’fat: Forced to pay taxes from behind a checkpoint and wall – in pictures

by Jenna Bereld and Samar | 19 Dec 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On December 18, 2011 residents of Shu’fat and activists protested against the separation wall in front of the new checkpoint. A certain loss of demonstrators was noted, since thirty-five organizers were arrested yesterday by Israeli policemen in their homes in the Shu’fat refugee camp in the middle of the night.

Forced to pay taxes from behind a wall – Click here for more images

The residents of Shu’fat are Israeli citizens. However, they cannot enjoy the privileges a citizenship normally includes. While the streets in the illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev on the other side of the wall are clean and the municipal services are working, the Shu’fat streets are dirty and waste collection does not exist. Houses taller than two stories are illegal in East Jerusalem, so most houses here have demolition orders.

“All people in Shu’fat must pay taxes to Israel, and still the streets look like a third world country,” one of the demonstrators says.

“They are taking from the poor and give it to the wealthy,” another demonstrator says.

Shu’fat is a neighborhood in the north-east of Jerusalem, though separated from the rest of the city by the eight meters high concrete separation wall. The Palestinian population of 50,000 live more or less imprisoned in the neighborhood, forced to pass through a military checkpoint to reach the rest of Jerusalem. The checkpoint, comprising an observation tower, five stations for armed soldiers to search the cars, and the most recent surveillance technology, was inaugurated last week.

Starting on December 23, there will be weekly demonstrations in Shu’fat after the Friday prayer.

“We will come here to protest every week until this wall has fallen,” promises Jeff Halper from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Jenna Bereld and Samar are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).

The separation barrier, separating Shu'fat from the illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev that can be seen behind the wall. According to a survey presented in the book "Negotiating Jerusalem" (Jerome M. Segal), as many as 57 percent of the Israeli Jews support the statement "In order to ensure a Jewish majority when asked, "Do you support or object to redefining the city limits so that Arab settlements and villages which are now within the borders of Jerusalem (such as Shuafat, Um Tuba, Zur Baher) will be outside the city?" | Photos by Sarah-International Solidarity Movement (2011)

Soldiers told the demonstrators to leave of "security reasons" | Photos by Sarah - International Solidarity Movement (2011)

To travel from Shu'fat to other parts of Jerusalem, everyone has to pass the newly built checkpoint and its armed Israeli occupation forces. | Photos by Sarah - International Solidarity Movement (2011)

The Shu'fat demonstration will from now on take place every week after the Friday prayer | Photos by Sarah - International Solidarity Movement (2011)

After the demonstration, Israeli soldiers entered the village of Shu'fat. The demonstrators told the soldiers to leave and called their presence "nothing but a provocation". | Photos by Sarah-International Solidarity Movement (2011)

Israeli occupation forces in the main street of Shu'fat, after the demonstration - Photos by Sarah - International Solidarity Movement

Young demonstrators stepping on the US flag. | Photos by Sarah-International Solidarity Movement (2011)

Source and much more at the ISM


http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/shufat-forced-to-pay-taxes-from-behind-a-checkpoint-and-wall-in-pictures/

Flying checkpoints erected in West Bank

Published yesterday (updated) 21/08/2011 20:56

 

 

 

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Israeli military erected flying checkpoints in the West Bank on Sunday morning, witnesses said.

Army checkpoints were installed near Qabir Hilweh, east of Bethlehem, and close to Eizariyya in East Jerusalem, where drivers said they had waited for three hours to pass.

Meanwhile, hundreds of cars were queuing at the container checkpoint near Bethlehem as Israeli soldiers inspected Palestinian vehicles.

Overnight, the Israeli army raided the southern West Bank and detained 120 Palestinians, local security officials said.

 

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414914