BEIT IBA, Thursday 18 March 2004, PMObservers: Vera, Olga, Naomi colour =red>On arrival, we find new “improvements” that the army has promised to make at the checkpoints: the quarry owner sprinkles water from a hose on the white dust that l usually covers everything ; so instead of dust we get mud and puddles. A really comforting change.The problem that occupied us most of the shift was the students and that is what this report will concentrate on. As we understand it , students are only allowed to enter Nablus on Saturdays and may leave only on Wednesdays. According to the soldiers: “That’s a decision of the brigade commander and there’s nothing to be done about it.” So what is anyone to do if the university does not coordinate the exam schedule with the brigade commander and today, Thursday, there are exams in all subjects !? Standing in a long row, at the side of the checkpoint for those wishing to go towards Nablus, are dozens of students detained here since 08:00 in the morning when they tried to go through to get to their exams. Their papers are being checked and they will receive them only at 15:00 and then they’ll be sent back home.On the opposite side of the checkpoint , are those who saw what was coming (approximately 25), and stayed in Nablus to take their examinations and now want to return to their villages near Tulkarm, Qalqiliya, etc. But they, too, are not allowed through: “Only on Wednesdays. Let them go back to Nablus”. We call the army’s humanitarian hotline again and again, the DCO, the IDF Spokesman’s Office, a German journalist, Knesset member Roman Bronfman, and, finally, Israel Radio’s military corespondent Carmella Menashe. They all say they are trying to find out. The hotline staff tell us that the matter is being discussed “at the very highest level”. And they all discuss and discuss for four hours!! In the end, wonder of wonders, all students who live nearby (the majority of them) are released to go home. Immediately, they all take off, leaving behind, still detained, only seven students who live further away (including one, from Jenin, who wants to get home as fast as he can to look after a sick mother who has a heart condition). One of the officers announces that these students “are never going through” and they return to Nablus. Later on, the German journalist is told that they will be allowed to go back home next day; we are going to try to make certain this does indeed happen.(The next day I called the army spokesman’s office to make certain that the students are actually going to be allowed home. After two hours of discussions at “the highest levels” it was decided, “No!” “ The decision may be changed later, you can never tell.” This, according to the army spokesman. No one gave me a straight answer to my query as to how the students will know if the decision is changed. “Let them try again (eight hours at the checkpoint) and then they’ll see whether they get through or are detained…” The German journalist, really annoyed because he had been lied to, wanted to interview one of the students and we gave him his phone number.)Another problem is the long line of detained people. Dozens of people are detained :on their way to work (including some teachers and a school principal), on their way home, due for medical treatment, returning from such treatment and still sick. Their identity cards are taken from them and they wait for hours, sometimes over eight hours, without anyone paying them any attention, with no water or food, no warm clothes if the weather changes (they leave home in the morning), without lavatories, in the dust of the quarry that is stirred up every time a car goes by. When they turn to us asking: “Why?” we “joke” with them and say that all their troubles will be over when they’re old and get to be 35 . Some of them get fed up and leave. When the cards are eventually handed back, their absence will be noted and who knows what will happen to them in the future. How can it possibly take eight hours to check one identity card, and how come that they are all released together at the same time? A young doctor, detained a week ago for six hours, told me on the phone that he sleeps at the hospital in Nablus and e will drive home only after there is peace!!Finally, some change at the checkpoint. Some of the soldiers at the checkpoint have been replaced and we especially notice the absence of the sergeant A. who has been in charge here for weeks has been with his hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing methods. (Last week we complained to the army spokesman’s office and to Knesset Member Ran Cohen about A.’s rude attitude, and Cohen promised to take care of it.). Without A., the soldiers were calm and decent (we were surprised), ready to listen ( especially an officer called N.) and one of them even told us that “your presence at the checkpoint is a good thing and helps make it more humane”. And then there is the officer O., of course, who tries to help as much as he can and also tells us whenever he just cannot do anything. And for all that , the checkpoint is bad, bad, bad! If it didn’t exist, no one would have been able to invent it!