A Palestinian woman tries to squeeze through the turnstile at the Hawara checkpoint with her son. (courtesy Washington Post)

CAIRO, November 29 (IslamOnline.net) – The West Bank checkpoint of Hawara stands as a telling example of the beyond-description dehumanization of thousands of Palestinians at Israeli roadblocks across the occupied Palestinian territories, a leading US newspaper reported on Monday, November 29.

Beatings, shootings, harassment, humiliation in front of children and wives and life-threatening delays are but a few examples of the appalling conditions at the sandbagged Israeli checkpoints, The Washington Post said.

“I wouldn't let you in even if you brought God here with you,” one soldier shouted at 29-year-old Mohammad Yousef.

The soldier had dragged the Palestinian out of an ambulance and refused to even examine his medical papers.

The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group said at least 83 Palestinians seeking medical care have died during delays at checkpoints.

Add to that many heartbreaking scenes of tearful young brides in their white gowns being turned away and students forced to miss final exams simply because the checkpoints were closed under the hoary-old excuse of preventing Palestinian bombings.

As many as 5,000 Palestinians a day request permission to cross. They stand in line in searing heat or icy rains, depending on the season, until they reach an open-air shed with a corrugated tin roof.

Often packed together by the hundreds, the Palestinians must then wait their turn to pass, one by one, through narrow metal turnstiles that the Israeli soldiers open and close electronically.

All males under the age of 30 are usually turned away, as are all students, males and females.

Common Practice

In this video image, a Palestinian plays his violin in order to pass through an Israeli army roadblock

Soldiers who had served at the Hawara checkpoint over the past year gave testimony describing what they said were common, accepted practices among colleagues.

A female soldier, for instance, assigned to a Gaza Strip checkpoint has forced a Palestinian woman at gunpoint to drink a bottle of cleaning fluid.

This month, her colleagues at the Beit Iba checkpoint in the West Bank, ordered a Palestinian to open his violin case and play for them as hundreds of other Palestinians waited behind him for their turn to pass.

The episode was caught on camera by Horit Herman-Peled, a volunteer for the Israeli rights group Machsom Watch, which monitors soldiers' conduct at the roadblocks.

Moreover, a 23-year-old sergeant handcuffed a Palestinian father with disposable plastic cuffs and ordered him to sit on the ground.

He bashed the Palestinian man in the face with his fist and brushed him away like a fly with the man's toddler son clung to his father's shirttail.

The Palestinian ended up in a hut covered by a blanket, with his muffled cries clearly heard.

When a soldier from the Education Corps asked the sergeant why he had attacked a defenseless, handcuffed Palestinian, he answered: “Because he was beaten, then everybody learns and no one fools around with us.”

The sergeant, who received later a six-month jail term, also admitted beating at least eight other Palestinians at the checkpoint and smashing the windshields of 10 Palestinian taxicabs.

In as many as five incidents, he “kicked them forcefully in their buttocks and pushed them backwards or assaulted them with punches and kicks,” his indictment sheet said.

Other times he took recalcitrant men into “the women's checking tent that was empty and . . . beat them either by punching them or kicking them in their stomach.”

Dreadful

As many as 5,000 Palestinians a day request permission to cross

Former checkpoint guards endeavor to erase this dark past from their memory and believe the Israeli army and society should accept some of the blame.

“The mission is dreadful. . . . It tears you apart,” Staff Sgt. Ran Ridnick told the Post.

“Most soldiers prefer to be under fire than at those roadblocks,” added Ridnick, who spent six months this year at the Hawara checkpoint.

Michael Aman, another staff sergeant who served in the same battalion, said: “Everyone, no matter how moral, if he feels a commitment to the mission, will or could fall into violence. We're all told we shouldn't behave badly to civilians -- never hit them, never yell. But after eight hours in the sun, you're not so strong.”

Sgt. Nadav Efrati, who recently finished his military service after spending months at the Hawara checkpoint, said the main words they taught them in Arabic were: “ Stop. If not, I will shoot you.”

“When we do all these things, we are not doing it only to the Palestinians, but to ourselves, too,” added another soldier who identified himself as Aman.

“The most important discussion should be in our own society. If you blame the soldiers, you miss the point. . . . These duties corrupt.”

Four senior officers of an elite Israeli air force had recently hit out at the military's “immoral” policies in the occupied territories.

Erlik Alhanan, an Israeli reservist, said last March that 80 percent of reservists have lost confidence in the declared moral principles of the Israeli army due to the practices in Lebanon and the crackdown on the Palestinians.

Twenty-seven reserve and active duty airmen signed a letter last September addressed to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, refusing to carry out “immoral and illegal” raids on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Also last November, four former heads of the Israeli Shin Beth interior security services warned of the “disastrous”  consequences of Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.