Israeli soldiers order Tulkarem farmers to strip

Ma'an
Israeli soldiers demanded 20 farmers strip naked for a security check as they returned from their fields west of the separation wall on Friday afternoon, the men reported.

Isolated from their West Bank lands by the separation barrier, the farmers from Deir Al-Ghusun must obtain permits to pass agricultural gate 609, west of Attil village in the northern sector of the Tulkarem governorate. It was at the gate that they were ordered to strip, and scuffles broke out when the men refused.

"We were about twenty farmers from Deir Al-Ghusun. When we arrived at the electronic gate known as gate 609 ... there were six Israeli soldiers who insisted that we undress completely including underwear, at gunpoint," Abdul-Latif Zeidan, one of the farmers said.

When the men refused the orders a fight broke out, Zeidan said, at which point he phoned the Palestinian liaison department in Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) office, as well as International Red Cross officials.

Zeidan said a second group of soldiers arrived when the fight broke out. The leading officer of the second group told farmers that the soldiers were not given orders to strip search farmers at the gate, and that the move was their own initiative. They were told to pass through the gate and return to their village.

The incident marks the fourth escalation of abuse at the agricultural gates and checkpoints separating Palestinians from other parts of the West Bank.......

Teachers working at the Ad-Dab'a village school were subjected to a search for the first time on Wednesday, and when pregnant women refused to pass through body-scan equipment, scuffles broke out at the checkpoint and the group refused to submit to the search. On Thursday, the teachers returned to the point and again were told to submit to a search, but again refused.

The school's principal said permits issued to the teachers so they could pass through the checkpoint in the separation wall had been sufficient for the past seven years, and condemned the increased restrictions that prevented children in the village from continuing with lessons...  Full story