Beit Iba, Wed 27.2.08, Morning
07.24 Beit Iba. There are many pedestrians but most of them are students who are checked randomly. The younger woman are checked more carefully because of an alert. No detainees. A representative of the DCO is present. Those leaving Nablus pass through the x-ray machines and have to take off their belts, phones, etc. A young man dressed in a smart black suit asks us to look at the ridiculous slip shoes which he has to wear so as not to tramp on the muddy cement floor. When he has passed he takes out elegant black shoes which he puts on. He says that each day he goes through Beit Iba or Hawarra …he says this in American English with a mid West accent and says that always there are problems and he has to wait and he says that he feels that all his life is passing at the checkpoints. One of the soldiers says that he knows him and that he does pass there each day and greets him. And then one of those absurd incidents takes place which happens at the checkpoints. He gives him his hand and the Palestinian looks around in amazement but the soldier is so friendly and naive that he has no way out but to shake hands. .
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.
Jun-4-2014Beit-Iba checkpoint 22.04.04
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