soldiers in Huwarra

1 Dec 2014

The occupying Army showed up in Huwarra. Nothing unusual had been happening and nothing unusual happened while the occupying army was here. It started about 2:30, and shortly there were groups of 2 or 3 soldiers who had forced their way on to tops of 9 houses and looked down their rifles at the street. The main street had squads of 2 or three soldiers positioned on both sides of the streets close enough that any squad could see the next squad on either side of them and often closer than that. Early on we heard there was a temporary check point set up on south end of town that was only checking spoiratic cars and was not stopping any of the yellow license plates of settlers. One of the soldiers in the center of town signaled a car over and check their papers, but this seemed more boredom than anything else, we did not see him check any other car and we counted as 50 cars went by. During this time he wandered around and paid no particular attention to the passing cars. All of this intense military coverage was concentrated in ¼ to 1/8 or the length of the main street in town. In fact a corner a little farther south on the main street that normally has a squad posted at it did not have anyone. It started about 2:30 PM and the soldiers were all gone by 5:20 PM. Other than forcing their way into peoples houses so they could stand on the roof nothing really happened. There was no apparent reason or objective for all this military activity. Unless it was just to humiliate people.