Beit Iba, Monday, 17.10.05, PMObservers: Daliah V., Edna K., Nurit V-L., (reporting)Guest from Austria, a members of European organizations for Human Rights, who joined us at the invitation of Ronit M. from “New Profile”.12:15 – Jit JunctionA few vehicles pass and are checked by 2 soldiers. On the other side also, on the north, there is a jeep. Opposite the soldiers, one detainee from Qalqiliya sits on the rocks. The soldiers took his permit, a substitute for his ID, which had expired 7 days ago. He only speaks Arabic and we did not manage to understand why he had not received his ID back in time. According to the soldiers, the ID is in Qalqiliya where he lives. He was caught going back from work in Israel. We show the soldiers the document concerning procedures involving IDs and claim that it is forbidden to take the permit from him, and that he should be allowed to return to Qalqiliya and his ID should be returned to him in spite of the “nerve” he had to runaround with an expired document. One of the soldiers tries to claim that also we would not have been allowed to leave our country and enter “another country” with an expired document. I answer him: “The whole difference between us and the Palestinian is that, when we lose an ID, we can get a substitute from the police which is not limited in time, while the permits which are issued to them have a draconian and unreasonable limit on their validity of 96 hours. In addition, in most of the cases the document is a substitute for the ID which the army took, lost, etc. In any case, the document must be returned to him, so that he can renew the original one. Since he was caught while illegally in Israel, it was difficult to help him immediately. The soldiers said that he was waiting for orders, and that he wouldn’t detain him longer than was necessary. The roads were empty.12:35 – Beit Iba checkpointUnusually quiet and empty. A few pedestrians pass on both sides. The vehicle traffic is also extremely light, and they are checked quickly, including buses. They are not taking off the passengers. Four soldiers inspect each bus: two inside and two outside. At the checkpoint itself, there are three soldiers and an officer, Y., who belongs to one of the commando units. Two are from the Military Police. They relate to those passing through pleasantly. One of the Military Police soldiers says in irony that they do the work, but the soldiers from other units get good reports. They say that, during the last few days, there has been a lot of pressure from 11:00-13:00, rather than in the afternoon, because of Ramadan (since people shorten their work days in order not to be caught at the checkpoint near the time of breaking the fast). They don’t explain the light traffic at the checkpoint today as a result of yesterday’s event in Gush Ezyon. To us, it does seem to have had an effect. This was the situation for more than an hour and a half of our shift. In the words of one of the pedestrians, a science teacher from Deir Sharaf who teaches in Nablus, on Sunday evening, Oct. 16, after the breaking of the fast, children were playing with firecrackers and then a number of army jeeps entered the village, scattering the people into their houses while they fired in every direction. They stayed in the village until around 21:00. The man talked more about the difficulties of the past few years, “People have a lot of anger in their hearts”, he said, “and that leads to violent deeds.” He, for example, has not entered Nablus with his car for four years. After he crosses the checkpoint, he takes a taxi to Nablus and another taxi within Nablus, and the same coming back.14:15We decided to go. We returned to Jit Junction; the detainee had been released. Then a taxi was detained. The documents of the young men in the taxi were taken for inspection. One of them, around 19 and Hebrew speaking, asked us to find out what was happening, as he saw the soldiers put the documents in their pockets, and he was afraid that he would be detained a long time. We checked – it was not the case. They were just waiting for answers. The boy had a tatoo on his left arm, but we noticed an inscription on his right hand, inside the thumb, where “Palestine” was inscribed. The tatoos were made in jail, where he had “sat” twice already, apparently because he was caught without a permit. Not so believable, but we didn’t try to draw him out. Retrospectively – too bad! We waited a while, reminded the soldiers that they were waiting while fasting and they should try to process them quickly. For the whole shift, we were explaining to our guest (an older man, with a typical Jewish story, starting with WWII, Austria, England, France…) as much as we could about our activity, about everything we saw on the way, and about the influence of the checkpoint on the Israeli and the Palestinian societies. His final question: How do we see the future – an important question, difficult answer…