Beit Iba, Mon 2.2.09, Afternoon
15:00 Few cars entering
or leaving Nablus and passing through the checkpoint. ID’s are
checked against a list of numbers.
Porters complain there’s
no work.
Soldiers at the pedestrian
checkpoint inspect the IDs of women and men permitted to use the fast
lane.
Young men behind the turnstile
go through the beeping magnemometer. They have to remove shoes
and belts and empty their pockets, and go through after their documents
are checked. The checkpoint commander goes from one lane to the
next, comes over to us and says hello. Few people are going through
but he says that, compared to the past few days when even fewer came
through here, it’s busy. The DCO representative also says that
today is busy, but there aren’t any problems. “Time passes
quickly at Huwwara. There are many problems to solve,” he says.
A young woman goes through
the fast lane. She’s hold a bag containing a wrapped box that
looks like a box of cookies from a bakery. The soldier asks the
DCO representative to inspect the box. The latter looks at the
bag and lets her through.
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.
Jun-4-2014Beit-Iba checkpoint 22.04.04
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