SARRA, BEIT IBA, Sunday 8 May 2005 PMObservers: Aliya S., Alix W., Drora S.. Susan L. (reporting)colour=red>14:30 – Sarra”No entrance” was boldly scrawled in fluorescent yellow marker on the boulders at the entrance to the checkpoint further along the road. The road was closed with razor wire, and we were considering walking up to the checkpoint ,when an APC arrived and a second lieutenant got out, opened the barbed wire, and told us that this was not a checkpoint. But to us it certainly looked like one of the 605 “closure barriers placed by the IDF on roads to control and restrict Palestinian vehicular traffic” as an April 2005 report from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian put it. The spot where soldiers used to stand looks even more dilapidated than before, but they are now housed in a permanent blockhouse . We stared, amazed, at a large truck, on which was written , “Palestinian Water Authority” and two flags — the Palestinian and the Japanese — “donated by the government of Japan.” Drinking water was being pumped to the village that has none. 15:20 – Beit IbaO., the usually obliging representative of the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians] , told a US citizen with no papers other than her passport and a tourist visa, that she couldn’t enter Nablus. “No foreigners allowed into Nablus,” he insisted and N. the checkpoint commander agreed. O. listed a number of options for the American woman: one was “go to Huwwara” where she eventually got in without any problems . When we heard from her, at 17:10, we told N., who first said that it had been the DCO representative who hadn’t let her pass and then added, “Is there any logic to the army?” or, “Logic in the army?!”15:45 – A Greek Orthodox priest and his wife, from Rhodes and Corfu, with Greek passports, were let in without problems. Why? “He’s the leader of a religious community,” said N.16:00 – Two young women and their brother, probably aged 10, were refused permission to come back with him from Nablus: a child has to be accompanied through a checkpoint by a parent, and no one else. They pleaded with N. :”But we were allowed through this morning.” “I wasn’t here this morning,” he said. In the pillbox at the checkpoint were three noisy Military Policewomen whose behaviour was appalling. They did their work, but the soldiers seemed to treat them with contempt. Above us, in the newly-occupied blockhouse, a soldier leaned out of the window, his gun aimed directly at us, in violation of regulations!How did we know it was aimed at us? There was nobody else on the Beit Iba side of the checkpoint. 16:30 A young man, holding a crying baby, his brother, not his son, was detained in the compound. Other than asking why he was there, we did nothing, and he was soon released. 16:45 A distraught young woman and her neighbour wanted to return home to Burka, but neither had an ID card, nor did they know their ID numbers. They’d left home in the morning in an ambulance taking the younger woman’s 10- month old baby to hospital, where her husband had remained. But their story fell on deaf ears. Happily, some other young women, theirneighbours, came past and were enlisted to help: half an hour later a man brought the women’s IDs to the checkpoint commander, and they were allowed through to go home. 17:05 A small boy with a toy Uzi, held correctly, passed through with his father. The soldiers checking vehicular traffic, who were more communicative than the commander and his soldiers at the pillbox, commented — laughing: “That’s how it begins”. 17:15 N. responded quickly to our request to nag the General Security Services , (the Shin Bet), about the time it was taking them to check on an An-Najah student who was in the detainee compound. Soon after he’d called them, the young man was let through. 17:30 One turnstile was broken and people got stuck in it, and N.’s side- kick did nothing but watch people, frustrated, trying to turn it. Then he shouted at some men who’d gone instead to the empty women’s turnstile, telling them to use the “proper” one and laughing when they, too, got stuck, [these are not simple turnstiles such as one finds in a subway station, but high , revolving gates made of steel bars: each segment is barely large enough to admit one average-sized person; there is virtually no room to spare for anything that person may be carrying , whether a child or a parcel; passage for pregnant women or for the elderly is extremely difficult and frightening]. 17:45 Before we left, we asked N. about closing times: 19:30, but 23:00 for entry to Nablus. The army apparently cares less about entry into Nablus these days. We also noticed that the taxis were very close indeed to the checkpoint. 18:00 Beit Iba was full of taxis: though it’s hard to see how the drivers can make a living , as traffic was so slow. Today there was already a closure in force ahead of Israeli Independence Day, which was still four days away!