BEIT IBA, Tuesday 17 August AMObservers: Ruthie, Lirona, Iris, Elinoar (reporting)colour=red>We went to Beit Iba after a short and uneventful stop at Irtah and Jubara. On the way we checked to see if the entrance to Ramin was still closed : certainly the entrance to the village from Road 60 was still blocked by a big dirt mound [this is a punitive measure carried out by the Israel army against numerous villages in the Occupied Territories; its effect is to severely hamper the movment of villagers and to dislocate life, since all vehicular access or egress is made impossible]. In Beit Iba, the monstrous iron turnstiles have been installed on the Nablus exit side. They impede movement, and it will be even worse when they are operated electronically. There were a number of detainees in the concrete “pen”, most of them were taxi drivers whose ID cards “are being checked” [detainees are, typically, young men aged from 16 to 30 who have no passage permits. The checkpoint soldiers phone their ID details to the General Security Services (GSS) which cross-checks them against a central list of security suspects and then phones the results back to the checkpoint. This cumbersome procedure, which often takes a long time, can take even longer if the checkpoint soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before they contact the GSS, or if they wait to get back a batch from the GSS rather than releasing individuals as clearance comes through for each. During this time, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoints since the soldiers retain their ID cards until clearance arrives]. The central event of the morning was the locking of two taxi drivers in a small cell, definitely as a punishment. That’s what the soldiers themselves said. One of them was soon released, the other, we were told, was a “serial felon”: he kept crossing the forbidden line in order to get passengers. His ID card was missing, too. He claimed that the Palestinian DCO had it. A., the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) representative was really helpful, and appeared to be quite sincere [the DCO is the army section that handles civilian matters; it usually has representatives at the checkpoints, ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. I produced a copy of a letter from the Judge Advocate General stating that punishment at checkpoints is strictly forbidden. A. was impressed, phoned his headquarters, but to no avail. The alternative was calling the [Israeli] police. Eventually, a friend brought the missing ID card from the Palestinian DCO, and the man was released. Not to go home, no, just to join the other lucky men in their pen [awaiting security clearance]. We’ll see what can be done about this matter of soldiers deciding to “punish”, write a letter of complaint, etc.