BEIT IBA, Sunday 15 August 2004 PMObservers: Yonat B., Shelly M. (reporting)colour=red>15:30 – On arrival we met 14 students who’d already been detained at least three hours [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, the Hebrew acronym) 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 an equally tardy manner at the end of the process, when they hand back the ID cards before releasing the detainees. Meanwhile the detained Palestinians are virtually held prisoner at the checkpoints since the soldiers hold their IDs until GSS clearance comes through] . M. explained that there was an alert regarding “sabotage by cellular telephone”, so a device for disrupting reception had been installed at the checkpoint. The side-effect of that was that the GSS couldn’t communicate with him and provide answers about detainees. Shortly afterwards this absurd problem was solved, and seven of the detainees were released. The other seven were released gradually, the last at 16:10.16:00 – There were another 10 detainees, one of them already here for an-hour-and- a-half. There was heavy pressure at the entrance.16:30 – N., “king of the detainees” at Beit Iba, arrived with a friend. M. told one of the soldiers: “Don’t check them. Detain them for two hours and then let them go.” We claimed that that was illegal and that detention as “punishment” was prohibited.He said: “I don’t know where you got that idea. There are explicit regulations that say I can detain them for four hours.” We asked him if he didn’t think there was something wrong about deciding at his own discretion to detain people. He said the whole situation was weird: “And I also feel weird when I tell a 40-year-old what to do. But that’s the way it is here, no law, no order.” There were eight detainees in addition to N. and his friend.16:52 – There were now 15 detainees. Some were released at 17:15 and 12 remained. Then M. sent a sick man with a head injury back to Nablus. According to regulations, he should have detained him, but the man couldn’t stand in the sun, and decided to go back to Nablus.One of the soldiers mistakenly detained a student from an-Najah University in Nablus, a diabetic who lived in Deir Sharaf – all good reasons not to detain him. M. himself didn’t know why he was being detained, and finally released him, on the basis of his magnetic card [possession of which attests to some measure of GSS security clearance], without waiting for the GSS answer. The student had already waited 20 minutes by then.17:40 – A truck driver went over to M, said he was registered [on a list as having permission to go through the checkpoint] but this morning his boss had come and asked the soldier to erase his name from the list because of a debt of NIS100 (about $22). M. found this hard to believe and started checking. The driver turned out to be telling the truth. M. let him through at once, put him back on the list and instructed the soldier on proper procedures (the boss should submit a complaint to the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] which would decide the matter).18:00 – M., at our request, released N. and his friend half-an-hour before the fixed time. The checkpoint was emptied of detainees. We left, saying goodbye to N. and to M. To our sincere regret this was M.’s last shift at the checkpoint.