Hawwarw, Sunday 1 May 2005 PM Observers: Yehudit B., Noa P., Naomi L. (reporting) Guests: 2 young women, one from Englandcolour=red>18:00 – A Palestinian woman with an American ID, here visiting her family in Nablus, had left the town with her sister for a visit and now they were not allowing her to return. For half an hour she had been holding a baby in her arms while a three-year-old toddler ran around her legs. R. [the boss of the local District Coordinating Office, which is the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] was not available. We called his assistant, B., who explained that the procedure was to apply to the ombudsman of the Central Command and ask for an entrance permit on humanitarian grounds. But that is something that takes at least three weeks, we replied, and meanwhile, the baby is crying, it will soon be dark and they are staying with their family in Nablus. He agreed to speak to her on our phone and, at the end of the conversation, explained to us that there was no problem, she also had a Palestinian passport. Someone would have to bring it to the checkpoint and then she’d be able to enter. The baby was crying and she was rocking it. We were calm, since , had the worst come to the worst she could have spent the night at the “humanitarian” building ,with its paper diapers and baby formula available. If she had tried returning to Nablus through the Huwwara checkpoint , no one would have made a problem for her, but the Beit Iba checkpoint is on another planet.18:43 – Finally, a relative arrived with the young woman’s Palestinian passport. After the soldier had leafed through it, the two young women and the small children left us and proceeded to Nablus and the soldier turned to his colleague and said: “Let her through, what else can we do with her?”18:15 – The checkpoint was almost empty, a few families with children arrived and went through quickly.19:00 – The checkpoint closed exactly on time. One lone man arrived “late” by two minutes and the soldier sent him back to Nablus. The soldiers were preparing for an exercise; meanwhile, about 10 people, including a young couple with a baby and small boy, had gathered at the checkpoint . They showed the checkpoint commander, a sergeant, a paper confirming that they’d come from the doctor, but that didn’t interest him. The checkpoint was closed: “Get off back to Nablus.” Another 10 people arrived, also seeking to go through. But closed was closed. While we were telephoning to everyone we could get hold of, the sergeant tried to convince the people that there was no chance that they would get through and, if they were desperate, they should go to Huwwara. When we stood next to them, or spoke to them, he said angrily that we were “bothering me at my work ” which was, of course, to keep them from going through.We spoke with: the spokesman; the operations officer; the secretary of the brigade commander, who was there but couldn’t come to the phone; the general’s office.After 20 minutes, an officer arrived at the checkpoint, from the soldiers’ barracks, and gave an order to let everyone through. But during the wait, some people had despaired and returned to Nablus or taken the sergeant’s advice and gone to Huwwara.Some of the soldiers called us imbeciles and the like; others complained about the long hours that they had to spend at the checkpoint. The entrance to Nablus was open all the time and people went in, while the soldiers merely looked quickly at their papers.It is not surprising that, a week ago, a man died at the checkpoint while waiting in an ambulance for an hour for the soldiers to come and do him a favour by opening the crossing, and then not without cursing and humiliating his son who was with him.