Beit Iba, יום ג’ 20.5.08, בוקר
07:15-08:00 Beit Iba. Very few people going through. No lines at the entry to Nablus. The right-hand lane for women and elderly men is blocked. The soldier in the booth checks all ID cards against his list. Women pass through this lane without being searched. A cleaning man wets down the red line, behind which people wait, as a signal to approach the booth where their ID's are checked.
A soldier wearing opaque sunglasses and pointing his weapon at us asks us to move away from where we are standing. We are surprised, and move back a yard or two. The soldier with sunglasses says, "farther," and the game of cat-and-mouse concluded with "I'll call the police if you keep on playing around with me". We moved another 4 inches. A reservist calmed the soldier with the sunglasses and us.
A quarter of an hour later a captain arrives and tells us to stand behind the faded white line at the entrance to the shed. We reiterated our civil obligations, in opposition to the "orders from the division commander”. The reservist who calmed things down goes over to the captain, and we're allowed to return to the shed so that we don't have to stand in the sun.
Beit Iba
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A perimeter checkpoint west of the city of Nablus. Operated from 2001 to 2009 as one of the four permanent checkpoints closing on Nablus: Beit Furik and Awarta to the east and Hawara to the south. A pedestrian-only checkpoint, where MachsomWatch volunteers were present daily for several hours in the morning and afternoon to document the thousands of Palestinians waiting for hours in long queues with no shelter in the heat or rain, to leave the district city for anywhere else in the West Bank. From March 2009, as part of the easing of the Palestinian movement in the West Bank, it was abolished, without a trace, and without any adverse change in the security situation.
Neta EfroniJun-4-2014Beit-Iba checkpoint 22.04.04
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