Beit Iba Thursday PM 29/06/06Observers: Smadar H. Ofra, Shlomo, Daniella (guests), Deborah L. (reporting)16:00 – 18:20Summary: It is deceiving when seeing a rather empty checkpoint. It is easy to forget that part of the reason is that no young men(sometimes 18 -25 sometimes 15-30) have been let out of Nablus for some time and many students are now on summer vacation. There were never more then a 50 pedestrian build-up in either direction. Most of the time there were even less people. There were never more then 11 vehicles in either direction and most of the time there were less. However, it sometimes took as long as 4 or 5 minutes to check each vehicle so that, for example, it took a truck that was 8th on line from Nablus, a half hour before he was first on line.There were 2 Palestinian detainees while we were there. Their ID numbers appeared on the wanted list. The soldiers at the pedestrian station and the vehicle station were amiable. There were two especially difficult situations that we witnessed. One was a detainee who was kept for 2 hours because his name was on the list of wanted men. He claims they stop him every day and he’s never gotten any explanation. The second problem was Israeli Arabs who were found in Chomash (a Palestinian village north of Shevai Shemron) and were brought to the checkpoint by soldiers who had called the police and wanted them to wait at Beit Iba. One family we talked to had been allowed to pass through Jubarrah and Anabta because they had copies of the ID of the driver’s mother. This means they had the right to be where they were. They had been held up 2 hours before being brought to Beit Iba and another hour at Beit Iba before the police came. When the police came, they were released immediately. See the details below. 16:00 Some taxi drivers ask us if Anabta is open. Does this mean it wasn’t open earlier? We are also informed by some taxi drivers that they were told on the radio that Shevrah Shemron was open, but it is not. The usual procedure of changing the rules from moment to moment. Six vehicles going into Nablus and 2 cars leaving Nablus. Two soldiers checking vehicles to Nablus as well as the vehicles from Kochen. Kochen sometimes has to wait the longest before they are given a turn. At one period they have to wait 20 minutes. Two soldiers checking vehicles from Nablus.At the pedestrian area 2 soldiers stand in the open area adjacent to the checking booth. There are 2 soldiers in the booth. There is one soldier checking each direction. We see a soldier in the tower above the checkpoint. There are about 30 people on line.There is one detainee who says he has been here for 2 hours. The soldiers say about one hour. He was a BINGO which means his number is on the list of wanted men. He says that every time he passes through they stop him and he doesn’t understand why.16:20 Smadar called the Moked about the detainee.16:30 The detainee is released. We ask the soldiers how often the list of wanted men is up dated. We are wondering if the detainee is having the problem of being stopped because of outdated lasts. The soldiers claim that a new list is made every day.16:33 Eleven cars to Nablus. I note a truck with a red cabin. He gets to the front of the line at 17:00. Two vehicles from Nablus. Fifty pedestrians to Nablus.16:36 A new BINGO.16:36 There is a car with a bride and groom waiting to pass into Nablus. Other well dressed pedestrians go by foot. One young man in a suit is very angry and shouts at us, “Why are you here. You can’t even help us. Go Home!”16:50 Four vehicles from Nablus. The last one arrives at check point at 17:06. A woman speaks to me in English. She wants me to request that the officer allow a bus that is filled with families going to the wedding to get to the front of the line. There are a lot of children and babies. The officer refuses to let them cut ahead but he does help with the checking so things will move faster. They make it to the front in about 15 minutes.17:12 Very few pedestrians.17:19 – 18:11 Soldiers come into the checkpoint with 5 Israeli Arabs. They tell Officer A. that these Israelis caused a problem and that they should be kept until the police come. It was only after we spoke to the wife of one of the detained men that we got a picture of what happened .Officer A. just knew he had to detain them until the police came and didn’t know anything else. The story as we understood(not all the details were clear to us) is as follows: No Israeli Arabs are allowed through the Anabta checkpoint heading north if they do not have a copy of the ID of a close relative they are visiting. The woman we spoke to and her husband have close family in Selot A Zahar(near Chumash about 4 kilometers north of Shaveh Shamron). They had copies of the IDs of the close family members and so they were allowed into the territories legally by way of the Jubarah and then Anabta Checkpoints. From Anabta they took the road to Bazareah to Route 60 (as do people who are heading to Jenin or in some cases to Nablus) and from there toward Selot A Zahar. They were driving in one car with their three small children and the woman’s sister was in another car with her husband and baby of a year and a half. They were stopped by soldiers near the Chumash settlement, along with 2 other Israeli Arabs who were in their own cars, and were told that they had no right to be where they were. The woman said that during the confrontation with the soldiers, a soldier kicked their car. After some waiting they were brought to Beit Iba (if we understood correctly they were brought through Shaveh Shamron). It turns out the car that belonged to the woman’s sister had a flat tire near Shaveh Shamron and was still back there with the sister, the baby and her husband but their IDs had been taken away. As the cars were brought to Beit Iba, the Israeli Arab boss of one of the drivers of the other 2 cars, who works in a factory in Deir Sharif, was called by phone and he came to see what was going on. The soldiers told him to come to the checkpoint to be detained as well. The 3 children of the woman were sweating in the car in the area facing the road to Kochen . The late afternoon sun coming from the west was beating down on them. We brought them something to drink and told them to sit in the shade. We kept going back and forth to Alex to explain to him what the story was as it unfolded. He finally called the police to make sure they were really on their way so that the detainees would not be stuck any longer. We tried calling the Moked but they told us to call the “KAPOTZ”(Pekud Merkaz??) 02 530 5398 who relate to problems involving Israeli Arabs. We spoke to Maron Levi at that number. She said the only thing she could do to help was after the fact. If the people felt they had been treated badly they could send her a fax with a complaint (FAX 02 530 5724). She could not interfere with the army while the event was happening. The police arrived at 18:11 and released them without giving them any problem whatsoever. The woman wanted to complain about the soldier’s behavior but her husband wouldn’t let her because he was afraid that the next time they come to the checkpoints, they might remember them and cause them even more problems.18:20 We leave. There were no flying checkpoints on the way home—not at Deif Sharif, not across from the industrial park of Kadumim, not at Jit and not at Yitzar. END