BEIT IBA, Wednesday 18 August 2004 AMObservers: Elisheva A., Natalia A., Liat G., Michalina D. (reporting)colour=red>On the road from Jubara to Beit Iba we saw two road-blockages made of piled up stones and earth: on the left-hand side of the road (the turn-off to Shufa?) and on the right, some 2.5 kilometers before the road to Enav (the turn-off to Saffarin?)[such road-blockages are usually resorted to by the Israel army as a form of collective punishment; they make it impossible for residents of the villages in question to move in or out by car,and suppliers of goods and services are also thus kept out; the whole life of the village affected becomes even more intolerable than is usual]. The iron gate at the entrance to Anabta was closed and several buses and dozens of cars were waiting there. We reached Beit Iba checkpoint at 08:25 to find that pedestrian traffic in both directions was sparse, as was vehicular traffic towards Nablus. There was considerable traffic on the road out of Nablus, including many ambulances which went through without delay.Under the blazing sun and amid the deafening noise of welding (for the construction of roofs over the pedestrian lanes), three detainees were waiting, two of them students [detainees are, typically, men aged between 16 and 30 who do not have passage permits. Their ID details are relayed by the checkpoint soldiers to the General Security Services (GSS – aka the Shabak or the Shin Bet) which cross-checks them against a central list of security suspects and then relays the results back to the checkpoint; this process is cumbersome and can be further lengthened if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before relaying them to the GSS, or if they behave in a similarly tardy manner at the end of the process, before they release the detainees. Meanwhile the detained Palestinians are virtually held prisoner at the checkpoints since the soldiers hold their IDs until GSS clearance comes through]. Most of the detainees and of those sent back without checking that day were students who’d been trying to get to exams or to complete enrolment. The explanation of the soldiers and their commander was that they’d received instructions from the District Coordinating Office (DCO) not to let students through [ the DCO is the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians]. The checkpoint commander said that the DCO had checked with the university and there was no enrolment today, nor were there any exams. Hence, some of the students were not even permitted to approach the checkpoint and were sent back without checking. Only those who insisted, or those who arrived while we were there and appealed to us, or those whom we ourselves noticed, were detained for checking. Those who didn’t give up in despair, eventually went through, some after the intercession of the DCO representative who arrived at 09:40. One of the students who came from Qalqiliya and said his exam was due to start at 09:30, passed through only at 09:40, despite our urging that the check be speeded up.The commander was generally “suspicious” and, so he said, was “experienced and not naïve.” He perceived every young man as a potential terrorist and a liar; he wasn’t cruel but he was convinced that “he knew all about them.” In some cases he even helped and was reasonably considerate and flexible, but he was generally tough on young people. However, with one exception – a taxi driver- people were not detained beyond the time it took to check their papers and were usually released after an hour.At 09:00 we saw two soldiers giving the commander the keys and papers of a taxi (we have the licence number and the driver’s name). One of them said to the commander: “ Make him wait a long time, let him learn!” The driver told us he’d crossed the notorious “virtual line” [beyond which taxis may not travel] by reversing in order to take on a passenger. We tried to persuade the commander that every passenger was vital for the driver’s livelihood, but he wasn’t interested and said he had the right to detain the man for four hours, and that he knew the rules better than I did. The DCO representative had no greater success. After 50 minutes, we contacted the army’s “humanitarian” hotline. A. promised to check. We called again after half- an-hour and received the same answer. When we left at 11:25, we passed the driver’s details on to the Centre for the Defence of the Individual (Moked) who promised to deal with the case at once. I talked to the driver later and he said he’d been released between 12:00 and 13:00, in other words after between three and four hours!At 09:50, a woman of Palestinian origin with US citizenship arrived. She was about to be married in Nablus. The soldiers refused to let her through and took her passport for checking. She was released after 20 minutes on the intercession of the DCO representative.A Bedouin family (parents with six children), living near Nablus, were on their way home by car . They had all the required permits, but the car was not “registered”. In order to enter Nablus by car, one must have passage permits for the driver and passengers, and the car must be registered in the file held at the checkpoint. This is normally done at the request of an institution or place of work. We were told that private individuals’ vehicles were not registered, so that an individual living in Nablus couldn’t leave it by car. Institutions and places of work extract large sums in return for their “mediation” and most people can’t afford the “luxury”, especially since the permit is only good for a month. In this particular case, the commander eventually decided to let them through.A supplier of figs to Nablus, who lived in a nearby village, wasn’t as lucky. He too had all the required permits, but hadn’t “registered.” After a lengthy attempt at persuasion, he was permitted to order a car from Nablus which came to the checkpoint. The man had no choice but to transfer all the crates of figs from his car to the vehicle from Nablus, and he then left his car at the checkpoint and entered Nablus in the other car.