Anabta, Wednesday PM, May 31, 2006 Watchers: Deborah L., Raya Y., Smadar H. (reporting) Guest: Ofra Jit junction, 14:40 We passed through the Jit intersection; there’s a rolling [i.e. temporary, unscheduled] roadblock that has turned into a permanent roadblock. The soldiers inspected the cars headed west. 7 cars are lined up, waiting.Anabta, 14:51We arrived in Anabta. According to the report of a taxi driver who was waiting for passengers, there had been a traffic jam and pressure on the checkpoint until 13:00. Also when we got there, we observed pressure and lots of cars were waiting in both directions.In the Tulkarm direction, 20 cars were waiting for an hour, on average, and then proceeded toward Tulkarm without inspection. From the other direction there were many cars waiting and many pedestrians whose ID cards were inspected. The soldiers paid attention to one side of the checkpoint at a time, and shut down the other side. Thecheckpoint commander asked us to stand behind the roadblock and not to disrupt him at his job. Near the soldiers, behind the roadblock, there stood a taxi driver whom the soldiers prevented us from approaching. After a while, the taxi driver approached us and told that he brought over a female passenger with a sick child, and because of the line of cars before the checkpoint and the long delay, she asked him to bring her and her child close to the soldiers, where she would get out and have him drive back. When he did so, a soldier yelled at him, allowed the passenger with the sick child to cross the checkpoint, and then broke the taxi driver’s headlight!The taxi driver asked the soldier to call the military police so that he could complain, and was now waiting for them to get there. We made calls to the IDF’s humanitarian hotline, to Aharon H, the Efraim Brigade commander, and also to Naomi Lalo (of MachsomWatch). When we left at 16:00 Hana Berg (of MachsomWatch) called to say that there’s no point for the taxi driver to wait.After waiting for around half an hour, the taxi driver came to approach us again. Then a different soldier, who replaced the soldier who had broken his headlight, threatened him that if he (the taxi driver) doesn’t step back they’ll break his entire car and he too will be beaten up. H., the driver, ignored the soldiers and approached us. After several days, when I made inquiries as to what transpired, he told me that the soldier’s commander arrived and took the soldier away from the checkpoint. No military police arrived, and he waited until 19:00 and then drove away. (I have his name and telephone number).According to passersby from the Tulkarm direction, there’s a new rolling roadblock at the Tulkarm-Balaa-Anabta intersection, where they had to wait for three hours because of a kid who was caught. Those who came from the Nablus direction waited for an hour and a half without this rolling roadblock until they reached Anabta and here they waited another hour in queue.