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Beit Iba, Mon 16.3.09, Afternoon

Place: Beit Iba
Observers: Elisheva A. Bilha A. Yonah A.; Natanya translating
Mar-16-2009
| Afternoon

14.00
On the way to Beit Iba before the entrance to Shave Shomron we were stopped by soldiers who told us that cars with yellow number plates could no longer enter. We asked for a one time permission so as to say our farewells to Amjad who owns the kiosk next to the checkpoint of Beit Iba and after a short conversation the commander allowed us to go though on our responsibility. In the area of the checkpoint the soldiers were busy taking down what had been built only a year ago. There were many cars on the road. The kiosks had been closed and there were no pedestrians and no car stood in the parking lot.

It should be a happy occasion but both we and the Palestinians look on this with suspicion as it seems to us that at this stage there is a law of conservation of the checkpoints on the West Bank. One checkpoint is taken down and another is put up and widened at another place. One of the Palestinians told us that the checkpint at Al Badhan is again in action today and that drivers had been phoning him from the checkpoint near Deir Sharaf (which he calls the Taniv checkpoint) and told him that it takes them an hour to pass. On the way back the shift had changed and the soldiers were surprised that we had gone through but this time just scolded us.

  • Beit Iba

    See all reports for this place
    • A perimeter checkpoint west of the city of Nablus. Operated from 2001 to 2009 as one of the four permanent checkpoints closing on Nablus: Beit Furik and Awarta to the east and Hawara to the south. A pedestrian-only checkpoint, where MachsomWatch volunteers were present daily for several hours in the morning and afternoon to document the thousands of Palestinians waiting for hours in long queues with no shelter in the heat or rain, to leave the district city for anywhere else in the West Bank. From March 2009, as part of the easing of the Palestinian movement in the West Bank, it was abolished, without a trace, and without any adverse change in the security situation.  
      Beit-Iba checkpoint 22.04.04
      Jun-4-2014
      Beit-Iba checkpoint 22.04.04
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