Beit Iba, Monday, 29.5.06 AMObservers: Miki F, Noah, Ruhama S, Leah A (reporting) Beit Iba 08:00 – long line of cars, not so long a line at the pedestrian crossing. According to the checkpoint commander, opening was late this morning because of problems with military vehicles, and that is why there is still a long line. In addition he is temporarily preventing small carts and donkey carts from crossing until the pressure has dropped, which he estimates at 10:00.The soldiers manning the checkpoint are from Haruv (reconnaissance group) and, apart from one officer, they cooperated with us throughout the whole incident that we describe immediately.At 08:20 a young man arrived at the checkpoint with a large bag which, according to the soldier who checked, contained switchblades and suspicious cords. From that moment they began the “stoppage of life” procedure; all the Palestinians at the checkpoint were made to move back, in one case with brutality that resulted in an old woman falling on a barbed wire fence, tearing her clothes and injuring her hand. We complained to the senior officer on the spot. The people were driven into a blazing sun, with no possible shade. An additional force of soldiers arrived to push the people back further. There were many children, babies and ill elderly people who were kept this way for almost two hours until the robot arrived to detonate the bag, by which time there were around a thousand people. We tried to help, mostly offering water and pressuring the officers to speed up the process. 09:10 – a police sapper arrived, but he wasn’t prepared to detonate the bag because the crowd had not been pushed back far enough. 09:44 – we heard the sound of an explosion, but the soldiers were still not permitting people to approach. Two soldiers brought the suspect, blindfolded and manacled, and stood him in front of the crowd (???). 10:00 – they began to process people through the checkpoint, almost without inspection. The vehicles still waited. A soldier told us that they had found in the bag materials that could be used to make an explosive charge. We left.