BEIT IBA, Saturday 12 June 2004 AMObservers: Vivi Z., Michal S., Victoria B., and an EAPPI guest, Stellancolour = red>The unit of young soldiers at Beit Iba were certainly not the worst, they were fairly communicative, but quite inflexible. There was no officer in evidence. Our requests for an officer to be sent from the District Coordinating Committee (DCO) [the army section which handles civilian matters; it usually has a representative at the checkpoint ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] did not produce any results. Everybody leaving Nablus was asked to state his/her destination. All men who said they were heading for Tulkarm were detained for a check to be run on their ID card details, and this included those who held permits and those over the age of 35 [the details are cross-checked by telephone with a central list compiled and maintained by Israel’s General Security Services (GSS), also known by its Hebrew acronym Shabak or Shin Bet; the check can take anywhere from just under half an hour to three hours and more; men over the age of 35 are not generally regarded as security risks and are treated more leniently at the checkpoints than younger men; generally, permit holders have no trouble going through the checkpoints].Special treatment was accorded to a man whom we have met in the past at this checkpoint. He is actually 35, but is treated with suspicion because he looks younger. One of the soldiers decided to do some serious research on him, interrogating the man at length on the names of his family members, and showing great suspicion because he could not give the first name of his mother-in-law (the Palestinian probably calls her “Hajje” — an honorific title, rather than using her first name)[ He might also call her “Umm [mother of].. Mohamed” or whatever her oldest son’s name is; it is not unusual for people not to know someone’s personal name because they’re always known in the community, too, as , for example, “Umm Mohamed”]. He finally produced his wife who was also interrogated as to the family members’ names. After some hours the couple were both released with apologies (!) – apparently the problem was the lack of stamp on his ID card photo. This particular soldier’s inquisitiveness was remarkable, e.g. a man who said he was going to a wedding had to show his new shoes !There were several soldiers manning the checkpoint for those moving towards Nablus; one of them apparently believed strongly in the efficacy of yelling and re-educating the “populace”. We heard the all-too familiar shouted refrain: “The checkpoint is closed until you get back behind the concrete blocks!!” But we have seen worse in the past; such closures were relatively short. Still, until mid-morning the line of pedestrians was quite crowded and disorderly, with tens of angry, tired men (the women went through much more quickly).The young commander was polite but quite inflexible: so, for example, an old woman who tried to walk along the checkpoint fence so as to skip the line was turned back and made to take her turn with the others. This commander did not want to deal with any special cases out of line, including those who said they were too sick to wait (“Then they should convince the people in the queue to let them through”, he maintained). By sheer persistence, we managed to get several special cases through: a man with a child who had to be registered in school in Nablus; some medical cases, including a man accompanying his mother to the hospital – that one was hard, because the soldiers wanted to send the sick old woman through alone.In addition to ineffectual calls to the DCO, we tried to call the army’s “humanitarian” hotline. But a general request for help in getting an officer to deal with humanitarian cases was refused: they would only deal with individual cases. When we arrived at about 08:00 there was a group of some 15 detained persons who had been rounded up in the hills surrounding the checkpoint [presumably they had been trying to slip through and evade the checkpoint]. They had been caught between 05:00 and 06:00, detained as a punishment, and then brought to the checkpoint where they were again detained, until they were eventually released around 11:00 [the legality of these “punishments” imposed by soldiers is very questionable]. Most of those detained when they said they were going to Tulkarm were also released by this time, too.A little boy, accompanying a man and a flock of sheep, started a conversation with one of us in perfect English. He was on a visit home from Texas.We encountered several unannounced roadblocks on our way here, and on the way back. Some 40 vehicles, mostly trucks, were on line at Jit junction; and about 10 on the way back. There were 25 vehicles waiting to be checked at the Ma’aleh Levona junction on Route 60 as we drove back to Jerusalem.