"Six o'clock in the evening, last Thursday. The weather is pleasant. The Jerusalem Beach in Tel Aviv is full of swimmers. A perfect chance to escape the news. Two young inspectors dressed in orange with appropriate hats advance towards seven men who seem Arab, and demand their ID cards. The inspectors' intuition is spot on: these are, indeed, Palestinians. Probably construction workers who are dividing apartments into separate units or fulfilling the holy vocation of constructing luxurious residence towers, and hoped to relax after a long day that began at sunrise.
The Palestinians, aging between 20 and 50, some of them in bathing suits, are almost disinterested as they slowly pull out their ID's. The inspectors examine them, and say that they don't have work permits. The Palestinians are "shabachim," an acronym denoting people who are illegally in Israel.
The inspectors hold up the Palestinians until the police arrive. None of the Palestinians try to plead for their lives, beg or accuse. Maybe because they're tired, maybe because they're used to this humiliating ceremony, even when they were only trying to cool off after a hot day of work. They simply stare sadly into space. One of them tries to latch on to a group of men passing by and disappear without the inspectors noticing, or maybe he just wanted to move a bit, but the leaner inspector of the two shouts "hey" and he returns to his friends. They all stand there with their ID's, seemingly indifferent. They await the cops."