BEIT IBA and HUWWARA, Sunday April 25 2004Observers: Aliyah S., Anat S., Shelly M., Neomi L.(reporting)color=red>Despite the talk about removing checkpoints, the one at Qalqiliya was very active, complete with soldiers, cars, lines and detainees. At the Jitt -Sarra junction we found an unannounced road block where we saw a bus crowded with men, women and children which, only 10 minutes earlier, had been held up for half an hour of checking at Beit Iba, and now here it was stopped again, and doubtless it will be checked for yet a third time when it enters Qalqiliya. There were only few people wanting to go through at Beit Iba, checks were fast and there were no long lines. We were pleased to meet N. a down-to-earth, pleasant and effective officer. About 30 men had been detained : these are some of their stories:A business administration student from an-Najah University in Nablus, due to take an examination at 15:00 had been detained since 10:00. After a short conversation they let him go.A student of economics at el-Kuds was detained here yesterday from 08:00 to 17:00 and then sent back to where he had come from. Today he is also detained and needs to have some university papers signed in Nablus. After some intervention from us, he got permission to go into Nablus, on condition that he deposit his ID card with the soldiers with a promise that it will be returned to him when he comes back through the checkpoint in the opposite direction.The father of a two-year-old wants to get to the hospital where his child is being treated. After he had been detained for two hours, we intervened and the officer let him go through. We had been about to call the doctors, but the handling was fast and effective. A taxi owner from one of the nearby villages, who works in Nablus, wants to drive his two cabs which have been in the garage back into Nablus. In addition to taking away his ID card for checking, the soldiers have also confiscated his car keys. Initially we are told that there is no chance of his going through ; later, they let him go and tell him he can drive through with the cabs at 18:00.A young man who had been hospitalized for three days in Watani hospital had been held for half an hour before we intervened and they let him go. A psychologist had lately become the father of another child, so he and his family have moved to a bigger home. He wanted to go to Nablus to arrange for the changes to be registered, but, because his present papers did not match what he said about his address and the number of children in the family, he was refused permission to proceed through the checkpoint! We called the officer , N., who let him through. Two hours later he came back with the right papers, but written in Arabic, which the soldiers couldn’t read, and so again they refused to let him pass. We called for our Arab driver, N., to ask him to translate, but before he got to us, the soldiers had found a translator among those waiting to go through and the man was free to return home. Because the soldiers were behaving as well as possible, and because all but three of the detainees were free before 16:00 we decided to visit Huwwara south.Huwwara SouthWe found 17 detainees, some of whom claimed to have been held for five hours, most of them students on their way to Nablus. There was no water available , so we brought some to them. An aggressive soldier told them and us to keep apart from one another after the detainees had approached close to us to talk . But we stood our ground and insisted on talking to them.Huwwara NorthIt was the same story here: 20 students detained while their papers were checked for five hours. Among them was a wanted man who had had his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied. Here, too, there was no water, and the soldiers let us fill some bottles with raspberry juice from their own supply, but not all the Palestinians would drink it. We called the army’s “humanitarian” hot-line and even as we spoke to them the IDs were handed back and the detainees released. The relationship between the soldiers and the detainees was quite good: both groups are about the same age and both are depressed. Together they were drawing a sign that said “Yasin Village” named for one of the detainees. One of the soldiers said, laughing, “You’re gonna stay here for 8 more hours. ” The detainees laughed back.As we stood there, smiling with them, our driver, N., came and told us about a military jeep carrying some soldiers, one of them a Druze with fluent Arabic, who had stopped four young Palestinian women who just crossed the checkpoint. The soldiers had said that they were from the General Security Services (Shin Bet) and they wanted to question the young women, separately. They had asked the girls for their phone numbers, and the frightened girls had replied that they didn’t have phones.We left at around 18:00. And another little episode: On our way home, a soldier asked our driver where he was from and when N. replied that he came from Tira, he was asked to stop the car for a quick check. I found this very upsetting: clearly we are Israelis, and if settler cars aren’t asked to stop for a check, why are we? Had we been driving our own car, the soldiers would have said nothing. N. said that this was not the first time he had been stopped and that it would all be over soon.But when I get home , it is not all over for me….as it will be said in the rubric to be used in two days time when the Independence Day beacons are lit, this is all “to the glory of the State of Israel!”