Beit Iba, Wednesday, 20.7.05 AMObservers: Edna K, Dafna P, Rina Z (reporting)When we arrived there were 17 vehicles waiting in line, including buses. Ambulances, medical teams, vehicles of international aid organizations, UN vehicles – all these go in without waiting. Two soldiers, one of them on guard, have to examine them all as well as the carts which go through and people going in and out of Qusin In the Nablus direction, traffic is very sparse in the morning. The soldiers could have been deployed between the two directions. We asked the DCO representative and the checkpoint commander to arrange this. Sometimes, when the DCO man helped, traffic flowed faster, but this happened very little. 9.15 –we measured the waiting time again – 35 minutes. A small truck with driver wants to go through to Qusin but has no permit. He has come from Hebron to collect a slaughtered calf. The DCO man suggests to walk to Qusin to pick up the load. At the pedestrian checkpoint a similar problem. In the morning most of the traffic is towards Nablus. The MPs are divided equally between the two directions so that only one soldier is checking a line of dozens of men and women. We approached the commander who solved the problem. He and another soldier and an MP who had been checking those exiting Nablus, started checking those entering and the line shrunk. He also reprimanded a soldier who spke rudely to the people in line. When a new commander took over from him, the situation reverted back. 9.05 – an electricity cut. The turnstiles at the exit from Nablus stopped and someone was caught between the bars for half an hour till it was mended. There was no coordination among the soldiers and although the generator started working again the turnstiles were halted for half an hour. Meanwhile a long line of people waited in the blazing sun. After some time the MPs started checking them and letting them through the side. A young man arrived with his father. Two days ago the son went through the checkpoint, handed his ID to the MP. He had a bag which needed to be examined and in his nervousness he forgot to ask for the ID back. It disappeared. The father says a new one would cost IL 400 and would be time-consuming. He would have to insert an ad in the paper, take the paper to the Palestinian liaison office in Nablus, pay the fee, go to the Israeli DCO at Huwwara and pay more fees and stamps. Edna gave him IL 200 from her own pocket. A Palestinian who worked as a porter at the checkpoint came over to us. The DCO officer won’t let him through. He has ten siblings and a two-week old baby – how can he support them all? A. claims he saw him smuggling a Palestinian through the checkpoint (a former prisoner, without ID). On the way back we went through Shavei Shomron. Concrete barriers on the road force the drivers to zigzag between them. There is a new watch tower beside the road so that the soldiers can see each car driving slowly through. 10.05 – a rolling checkpoint 2 km after Deir Sharaf towards Tulkarm. More than 40 cars and at the end of the endless line – two soldiers, in the blazing heat, checking very slowly and carefully as the line grows steadily longer. We called DCO Nablus who promised to send an officer. Nobody arrived in the next hour. At 10.40 we tried to count the cars again but couldn’t reach the end of the line in the blazing heat, without shade. However, perhaps due to our presence the soldiers began to speed up the checking. At 11.00 we saw the last car/ There were two more soldiers on guard at the top of the hill. One detainee- a young man who was walking along the road. He was released after ten minutes. As we left a new line was forming.