Beit Iba, Wednesday, 14.9.2005, AM: Rina Z, Natalia A, (reporting)7.10 Irtah, Not many workers going into Israel to work as a result of the changes in permits. Most of the workers have not received them. Only one soldier checking and people wait an hour or an hour and a half. 7.30 No traffic jams since the tunnel road at the bottom has been opened. Only people coming from Shufa are checked at Tulkarm because the soldiers tell us that the infiltrators come from there. At Anabta we are told that yesterday the soldiers gathered Palestinians at the checkpoint and shot above their heads. People waited three hours at the checkpoint. Because we cannot pass with a car we went as the Palestinians do to find out what is happening. There was a temporary checkpoint manned by two soldiers who could not control what was happening. They admitted that they opened fire yesterday because they could not control the situation and people tried to pass without being checked ( as a result of a security situation that day they said). 8.25 Beit Iba. Many students but the passing is efficient and quick. A young Palestinian, very nervous, was detained and we ask that someone translate for us what was happening. The soldiers would not allow this and took his cell phone from him without even allowing him to phone and tell his father that he was detained. The commander was hostile and a phone call to the humanitarian centre did not help as they backed the commander. After an hour and a half he was freed. A man who had a document to prove that he was a milk supplier to a hospital was not allowed to pass into Nablus. He did not have a permit,. only the car had one. At first we could not help him until A. and older and more experienced soldier arrived and after more than an hour he was allowed to pass so that the milk should not go sour, Jubara. The situation was normal except for two children 10-12 years old who had been annoying the soldiers. When we arrived they were frightened and crying and sitting in the cement blockades but were not handcuffed. The soldier said they had been in handcuffs for half an hour they said two hours. The soldiers would not free them as they said that the police and the war room had been informed and they had to wait. For an hour and a half we phoned the whole world and told the soldiers that we would call in a TV crew. Eventually they were freed and the commander came up to us in a rage saying he had been ordered to free them. As a punishment he told our driver to make a u-turn and stand in the line of cars. 5 Palestinians waited outside in the blazing sun to be questioned. No water and it was hard on everyone including the soldiers.