BEIT IBA, Thursday 17 June 2004 PM Observers: Ella, Ofra, Sara and Keren colour = red>At 14:30 there were about 15 detainees, some of whom claimed they had been there since 9:30. The army denied it. There were shelters for shade, but they were too small to accommodate all of them.Students from villages outside the Nablus district who wanted to leave the town were not allowed to do so. According to the District Co-ordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that deals with civilian matters and usually has representatives at the checkpoints , ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] An-Najah students are permitted to pass daily with a student card if they live in the district. The problem is that the soldiers don’t know sufficient geography and can’t identify which villages belong in the district. Students from outside the area are allowed in and out of Nablus only on Wednesdays and Saturdays [the Palestinian university week runs from Saturday to Wednesday]. All the soldiers know this regulation and observe it strictly.The building workers at the checkpoint decided take over and help the soldiers. They told us we mustn’t disturb the military. We complained about them to the DCO.A medical student from a Jordanian university whose family live in Jenin came to Rafidiya Hospital yesterday to sit an exam. When he tried to leave Nablus, he was sent back. He approached us, anxiously : he knew nobody in the town and couldn’t stay there. We took his ID card and asked the commander to check it with the General Security Services (GSS) [ also known by its Hebrew acronym as the Shabak or Shin Bet, which maintains the central list of security suspects] so that he could go through. The commander (Sgt. A) called him over and talked to him; he was detained for three hours [the GSS cross-checking of ID details often takes up to four hours and sometimes longer], but in the end he went through to Jenin. One of the soldiers claimed we were disturbing him and threatened to halt activity at the checkpoint if we didn’t go away, but in the end he calmed down. — The line of those wanting to go through the checkpoint grew shorter, but there were more detainees. We persuaded the commander not to send people back to Nablus. We collected ID cards from this latest group of young men and gave them to the commander for checking. But , as a punishment, quite undeserved , the details of their IDs were sent on to the GSS only some time later. The commander said that the initial punishment was being sent back to Nablus, but if people persisted then they got punished again by being detained for four hours.A 36-year-old was detained for several hours and released when we interceded [the “suspect” age for Palestinian men is between 16 and 30 — until very recently this upper limit was 35 — men in this age group are routinely detained for security checks at checkpoints; it is possible that in this case, the soldiers erred over the man’s age, although sometimes older men, too, are detained]. Some of the detainees had travelled into Nablus through the hills and were now being punished as they left the town [since they could not show any permit attesting to their right to have been there]. Two of the people waiting were returning from a visit to their sick father at Rafidiya Hospital and were not allowed to leave Nablus. The soldiers discovered someone wanted by the GSS and they burst into shouts of triumph. A bent old woman with a stick had trouble going down the ramp beside the checkpoint window and the soldier shouted at her.16:00 — There were very many people at the checkpoint, including numerous children and babies. Two of the detainees had had their taxis confiscated as punishment for driving along a forbidden area. One of them was a diabetic and found it difficult to stand in the sun. Two building workers from Sabastiya had entered Nablus in the morning and were now being detained at the exit.16: 30 — We talked to R., from the DCO, and asked for a representative to be sent. Nobody arrived.16:45 — The checks were speeded up, but not those for the detainees.16:55 — Staff Sgt. Y. took over from A. for a few minutes and, after pressure on our part, contacted HQ about the detainees. We believe the details had only just been sent over.17:00 — The students were released. When we left, a taxi-driver from the Qalqiliya-Nablus line approached us and said the soldiers wouldn’t let him get to Nablus and stopped him at the Jit junction whenever there was a road-block there, and his passengers got sent on by bus. Because of this , he had lost money and his passengers had had to pay twice .On the way back we discovered to our surprise that the Kedumim “industrial area” [attached to an Israeli Jewish settlement in the occupied territories] consists of only three concerns, two of them closed, while the third, a soap factory, employs only three workers. Nonetheless, it covers a wide area and a massive automatic iron gate and electrical installations have been built for its use.