Beit Iba, Tue 15.7.08, Afternoon
Beit Iba cp
16:40 4 detainees. According to the commander, two have been waiting 20 minutes and two others 50 minutes. He says that he intends to keep them for two hours. They bypassed the checkpoint when it was crowded.
At the moment there is almost no one waiting to go through.
One of the detainees calls to us. Amit approaches him (with the commander's permission); he tells her that he works in a quarry (which is evident from the work clothes he was wearing), and they arrested him at his workplace, claiming that bypassed the checkpoint by going through the quarry. The commander says he's lying! Whom to believe?
The paradox is that at the entrance to Nablus 20-30 people are waiting for their documents to be checked against the short list. That's the IDF's logic – a short distance away people can enter Nablus through Huwwara without being checked at all.
17:15 The commander orders the release of two detainees. The soldier who carries out the order is a hothead, gets into an argument with one of them, who insults him and is immediately detained again. The second goes to the end of the line.
The same soldier also got into an argument with us earlier. The commander, who tries to maintain a calm atmosphere, moved him to another location at the checkpoint. Far from us, and far from the detainees' pen.
17:30 We left.
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
-