BEIT IBA, Sunday 9 May 2004 PMNeomi L. (reporting), Yonat B. (guest), Rina S., Aliyah S., Shelly M. colour=red>On our way to the checkpoint, we were asked by our fellow watcher Shelly N. to check and see how we could help a taxi driver detained (with his car) at Sarra checkpoint. On arrival, a very hostile soldier tried to prevent us from talking to the driver (and a second driver who had also been detained in the meantime). He said this was a closed military area. We asked him to show us an order to this effect but obviously he didn’t have one , so he threatened to call the police, and when he saw that that, too, would not work, he closed the checkpoint at both sides until we left. The taxi owner told us that he was asked by soldiers at Yakir junction near Haris village to drive three of them to Einav. On the way to Jit junction, he asked them whether they would let him go back easily and was told that they would. On the way back , and at the same junction, his taxi papers and keys were taken and he was detained at Sarra checkpoint. We spoke to him at about 13:30, left him a bottle of water and asked Shelly N. to deal with the problem by phone. She worked at it until 17:00 but didn’t get anywhere. The staff at the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that deals with civilian matters] promised her that after the confiscation form was signed they would let him go; but by 16:30 the form was still unsigned. At 17:00 DCO representatives talked to the soldiers, but left without talking to the taxi drivers. According to the driver the soldiers “just made fun of him”. At 22:00 the drivers were moved to Shavei Shomron checkpoint, where, according to one of them, violent soldiers welcomed them with curses , spat at them and kicked them.Since one of the drivers speaks fluent Hebrew, the soldiers talked between themselves in Russian so that he wouldn’t understand. At 24:00 he got the DCO phone number from a friend, called them himself, and wrested from them a promise that he would be freed immediately. He got his car keys back at 01:45 and drove home. When I talked to him next morning he said that despite everything , he would continue to support the peace process and he thanked us for our “help”.At Beit Iba there was light traffic only, and it seemed that there were no special problems. There were 30 detainees, including three women students who had been held for four hours as a punishment, because the soldiers had found in their ID cards a drawing of a map of Israel with a rifle superimposed on it. They were standing alone, not talking to the others who asked us to do all we could for them. At 15:40 most of the detainees were freed, but 11 (including the young women ) remained. On the exit from Nablus side were seven men who wanted to return home . They said that they had gone through the checkpoint in the morning, but the soldiers and the army “humanitarian” centre both said that that was impossible because the men had not had the proper permits for almost a year, and they must have “crept through”. So, now, they must return to Nablus or remain at the checkpoint: “Let them learn their lesson: for all we care they can simply creep back!” Some of the men were getting impatient and we pleaded with them to wait and keep trying. Then they were moved to the detainees’ area, and half an hour later were free to return home. On our way to the car on the Nablus entrance side, we met a young student with a huge box of Open University books and notebooks that he wanted to leave at home since he doesn’t use them as often now. The soldiers had him open the box and they checked every single book. Among the books, they found empty folders with a map of Israel and a picture of the Mosque of Omar in flames printed on the covers. There were also depictions of dead Shaheedim, [martyrs to the Palestinian national cause] who might have been suicide bombers or perhaps people killed in battle, with raised rifles. N. our driver translated the text : “He who puts out this fire preserves the honor of our homeland”.The soldiers decided that all this material was incitement and the student was detained. I called to check on him at 21:30 and asked what had happened after we left. He said that the soldiers had gone home and told him and another five detainees that because he was a liar (he had told them that his father was deaf and his mother sick and that he had to take care of them) he would spend the night at the checkpoint. I called S., at the “humanitarian” centre, and A., at the Nablus area DCO, asking them either to let him go or at least take him to a place where he could spend the night, with food, water and a bed. Another call to him at 23:15 told me that he had just been released and was on his way home.