BEIT IBA, Thursday 7 October 2004 AMObservers: Ofra K., Micky F., Yudit A-D (reporting)09:10 – There was an unannounced checkpoint between Funduk and Jit with lines of some seven or eight vehicles in each direction, waiting some 10 minutes. The checkpoint was dismantled several minutes after our arrival. The soldiers claimed there’d been a suspicious object.09:30 — Sarra checkpointApart from two soldiers and one on lookout, the checkpoint was empty.09:50 — Beit Iba checkpointThere was relatively sparse traffic. But there were 12 detainees who’d been waiting since early in the morning. One of the detainees said that there had been 25 of them: their documents had been checked, and 13 had gone through an hour ago but he and another 11 were still waiting. When we inquired, the soldier said those who were still there had been disruptive and were “being taught a lesson”.[Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; their ID details are phoned through to the General Security Services (GSS, also known as the Shabak or the Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym for the GSS) for checking against a central list of security suspects and the answers are then relayed back to the checkpoints. This cumbersome process can take considerable time, and that can be prolonged even more if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before passing them on to the GSS , or if they behave in a similarly tardy manner at the end of the process, waiting until they have a batch of GSS clearances before they release individual detainees. Meanwhile, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoint where the soldiers retain the ID cards until the entire process is completed]. By 10:20 there was rather more traffic.A 27-year-old from Tulkarm, in need of a kidney operation, had been sent from the Tulkarm hospital to the Nablus hospital with medical documents and x-rays. He was turned back as being “barred” [by the GSS] and was told to bring a permit from the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] . We contacted Dalia Bassa [the officer in charge of health matters in the Occupied Territories] who promised to check and let us know. At 10:45 she got back to us saying that he was indeed banned from passage by the GSS, but that she hadn’t given up on the matter . The young man, however, did gave up in despair and went home.10:50 — The ID of a student was declared forged and confiscated (we were unable to help). Two detainees were sent back, the remainder kept there as a lesson!11:00 — We left early and joined the deputation to the village of Salim to pay a condolence visit to the family of a villager murdered by a settler from Itamar.