'Abd Hushiya, taxi driver
I have been driving a taxi for a company for about a year. The work is hard and the income limited, especially when Jenin and the other towns are under curfew or closure. So I try not to miss any chance for a fare, even if the trip is hard and dangerous.
Last Wednesday [14 August], several young men from Jenin asked me to take them to Jericho. I knew that the trip to Jericho was difficult and risky, but I agreed to take them so I could make a little money.
We left Jenin around 8:30 A.M. On the way to Tubas, which was around twenty kilometers southeast of Jenin, I passed through a number of checkpoints. A few kilometers northeast of Tubas I reached Tayasir. The soldiers at the checkpoint there checked our ID cards, searched the taxi, and let us pass.
The next checkpoint was at Hamra. A special permit was needed to cross [and we did not have one]. We looked for an alternate route through the fields and the hills. I drove about forty kilometers to circumvent the Hamra checkpoint. I tried to continue along the main road, but we came across an army checkpoint near the Adam intersection. So I went onto a dirt road that went from the Masuah settlement toward the Ma'ale Efrayim settlement. From there, we could go straight to Jericho. I thought that I had made it.
Around 11:30 A.M., we got to the end of the road leading to Ma'ale Efrayim. Then I had a problem with the motor. It was because of the extremely hard roads we had taken. I tried unsuccessfully to fix the motor. A driver who passed gave me the telephone number of a mechanic in 'Aqraba and called and asked him to come to fix the car. The mechanic arrived around 1:30 P.M. He said that he had to take the care to the garage to fix it. All the passengers and I went to 'Aqraba. When we got there, the passengers got into another taxi and continued on to Jericho. I stayed and waited for the car to be repaired.
I slept in 'Aqraba that night. At around 7:00 - 7:30 A.M., I started on my way back to Jenin. I got to the Ma'ale Efrayim checkpoint at about 8:30 A.M., where the soldiers stopped me. For fifteen minutes, I begged them to let me pass. They refused. I went back to 'Aqraba and asked the local people how I could get to Jenin. They said that there was a road near the Gitit settlement that bypasses the checkpoint. I started on my way. Behind me was a white Toyota van. As we drove along the dirt road leading to the area of the Hamra checkpoint, soldiers in an army vehicle driving along the main road saw us. They darted onto the dirt road and came over to us. They demanded that we stop. We stopped and got out of our vehicles.
There were four soldiers. They ordered us to turn off the motors, which we did. They told us to give them the keys and our ID cards. Two of the soldiers pushed us several times. One of them pushed the other driver, 'Abdallah Suliman al-'Omar, from Faqqu'a, with his rifle. They searched us and the cars, and asked where we had been and where we were going. After about fifteen minutes, they gave us half a bottle of water and told us to stay there until the next day.
The soldiers took my cellular phone and 'Abdallah's two cellular phones. They locked the phones in the vehicles, took the keys and our ID card, and left. It was around 11:30 A.M. We stayed by the vehicles until about 8:30 P.M. The soldiers had ordered us not to move or open the car doors. They said that if we go into the cars while they were not here, they would not return our keys and IDF cards when they got back. So we didn't go into the cars even though the other driver had a spare set of keys.
At night, we went to an area about half a kilometer from the cars and slept under a tree. We were afraid that, if we stayed near the cars, other soldiers or settlers would come and attack us. It was cold and we were hungry. We hadn't eaten all day. The water that the soldiers had given us was only enough to wet our lips. We got very little sleep.
At sunrise, we went back to the cars. The front tires of my taxi were cut and flat. It seemed that they had been slashed by a knife of a sharp object. Three tires of 'Abdallah's tender, the two in the front and one in the rear, were cut and flat. There were also scratches on the windshield.
When it got to be 10:45 A.M. and the soldiers had not returned, we decided to go into the cars. 'Abdallah used his spare keys, and I opened the back door of my taxi, which wasn't locked. I broke open the toolbox - the soldiers had taken the key for the toolbox - and took out the cellular phone. I called my family and told them where I was. We sat there and waited for the soldiers with the keys. Around noon, an army-patrol vehicle with four soldiers passed by. They stopped and asked what happened. They treated us nicely. We told them, and they promised that they would find the soldiers who had taken our keys. They gave us half a bottle of water and advised us to drink. We told them that we were hungry and that we hadn't eaten anything for thirty hours. They had two plums. They gave them to us and then left.
Around 1:30 P.M., we gave up hope. None of the soldiers had returned. We called friends and asked them to get us the telephone number of the Palestinian DCO and the Israeli DCO in Sallem. I spoke with a person named 'Adel at the Israeli DCO. Apparently, the Palestinian DCO had contacted him. He asked what happened and where we were. I told him and he promised to locate the soldiers. Around 5:00 P.M., 'Adel called me and suggested that we walk to the Ma'ale Efrayim checkpoint, which was about five hundred meters away. When we reached the checkpoint, the soldiers told us that they didn't have our keys and ID cards. We asked them for water. They said that they didn't have any, but that they had half a bottle of cola and that we could take it. We didn't want to drink cola on an empty stomach and with such a great thirst; it wasn't healthy. We told them that he had not eaten for two days. They said that they didn't have any food. They told us to go back to the cars.
We went back tot he cars. At about 10:00 P.M., some foreigners came. A friend of mine from Jerusalem had sent them. They brought us tires for the cars, food, water, cigarettes, and the keys for the cars. When we talked with the Palestinian DCO, they mentioned that the soldiers at the Hamra checkpoint had the keys. I had told this to my friend from Jerusalem, and he sent the foreigners to get the keys. We changed the tires, ate, drank, and started on our way to the Hamra checkpoint. We went there because that is where they said our keys and ID cards were. We reached the checkpoint at 11:45 P.M.
The soldiers asked us what we had learned from all this. I told them that we have to drive along the roads and not to try to bypass the checkpoints, which is what I thought they wanted to hear. After waiting there for about ten minutes, they gave us our keys and ID cards and we drove off towards Tubas.
I arrived home around 1:30 A.M., at the end of an oppressive thirty-six-hour journey.
'Abd al-Hamid 'Abd al-Hamid Hushiya, age 32,is a taxi driver. He is married and lives in al-Yamun, Jenin District. The testimony was given to 'Atef Abu a-Rob in Jenin, on 20 August 2002; additional details in the testimony were provided to Najib Abu Rokaya, by telephone, on 25 August, 2002