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Beit Iba, Mon 31.3.08, Morning

Place: Beit Iba
Tags: Arbitrariness, e.g. an arbitrary decision
Observers: Ronnie S., Osnat R. Natanya translating
Mar-31-2008
| Morning

  07.35 Beit Iba. 2 cars in both directions. It is raining. Passengers getting out of a taxi do not have umbrellas. Pedestrians today have to come through the shed and not as usual on the side of the road. All IDs are checked fairly quickly. A truck driver who says he passes each day is not allowed through. The DCO says that there is a change in the rules. Now not only do driver and truck need a permit but they have to be registered at the checkpoint which only the DCO can give and the DCO does not give permits to more than 5 cars to a company. The commander, a reservist, is not interested. It is not his problem. He has to run the checkpoint  properly and it is true that things are calm. We saw trucks, which normally passed, standing on the side waiting to pass after a check and in the end are told to go to the DCO to get the permit.    At the exit the young go through the x-ray device as usual, passing through again and again until the device is quiet. There is less hostility than usual. It is all more or less a matter of routine. 08.25 Those entering are almost not checked. Now people are checked randomly and those who do not have to be checked go on the side of the road. 08.45 Buses with small children come to the checkpoint and the soldiers get into the buses to see that all is in order. The children are children laughing and shouting. At least they do not seem frightened of the soldiers.  

  • Beit Iba

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    • 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
      View the full album
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